Debbie -

Frankly, the gentleman comes across as someone who tells people what they want to hear (consider his pop-psychology essay on "Toxic People") and provides the services they want, as in aroma therapy. That he doesn't attempt - albeit on a website for the general public - to differentiate between different pain conditions is unusual for a pain clinic's website; but he also sounds as though he may in fact approach chronic pain as though it was some sort of an amorphous unitary phenomena, where each case is handled through a process of trial and error (see his "Green Journal Interview"). This doesn't exactly come across as a worldview that's informed by keeping abreast of recent scientific developments. That, and we know that chronic pain isn't all the same, different types map differently in the brain, and so on.

Then his bio offers this:

Dr. Dillard served as an Assistant Clinical Professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for 14 years, and was on the medical staff at the New York-Presbyterian Hospitals Columbia Medical Center. He was also an Attending Physician at Beth Israel Medical Center, in the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care. Dr. Dillard served as the Medical Director of Columbia’s widely-respected Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a National Institutes of Health NCCAM Center-granted research and education center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons under the direction of Fredi Kronenberg, Ph.D. , during his years employed at Columbia University Medical Center.

Dr. Dillard was the originator and course co-director with Dr. Kronenberg of Columbia’s ground-breaking and highly successful Continuing Medical Education conference, Integrative Pain Medicine, which educated physicians, nurses and psychologists from all over the world for six years. He resigned from employment at Columbia in 2006, to go exclusively into private practice in Manhattan, and in East Hampton, NY.

But a search of PubMed under "Dillard JN," provides only these listings:

Results: 2
1. Complementary and alternative pain therapy in the emergency department. Dillard JN, Knapp S., Emerg Med Clin North Am. 2005 May;23(2):529-49. Review.
PMID: 15829396
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

2. Should the FDA regulate alternative medicines?, Renner JH, Dillard JN, Edelberg D., Hosp Health Netw. 1999 Oct;73(10):24. No abstract available.
PMID:10576870
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Two published articles in 14 years at Columbia. Hardly the way to make tenure. In fact, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. That said, his "bedside manner" is probably very good to excellent, not that it has any effect, one way or another, on long-run patient outcomes. Which is to say, he no doubt comes across - and may well be - compassionate and caring.

Sorry I can't offer more of a ringing endorsement. But if it was me, I would take a pass on Dr. Dillard and seek out a bona fide physiatrist or other doctor who could set you up with a good physical therapist: preferably someone with one of the new 4-year graduate DPT degrees (their knowledge of neuro-anatomy is amazing) and hopefully hook you up with a trial of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES). That, or just follow Jo's very sound advice.

Mike


PS I would have gotten back to you sooner but our Internet service went out in fierce "Santa Ana" winds, blowing in from the Great Basin (think: Utah) with gusts up to 80 mph, and am only connected now through a miracle hot-spot device in my wife's purse, which pulls in a signal from another carrier.