Pain Medicine KOLs
About this list
1,721 key opinion leaders work in Pain Medicine. All 1,721 are basic profiles built from NPPES, OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Stanford University School of Medicine, University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have the largest Pain Medicine groups. They are spread across 192 institutions; the five largest account for 4%.
1,105 have reported industry payments.
26 carry the Emerging badge for the trajectory of recent publications. The most cited are David Miller, Abdullah Terkawi and Herbert Meltzer. Every count comes from public federal and open sources and was last published on November 8, 2026.
- 1,721
- Key opinion leaders
- 1,105
- Reported industry payments
- 26
- Emerging
- November 8, 2026
- Data as of
How these numbers are counted: sources and methodology.
By the numbers
- $54.6M
- Industry payments reported, program year 2025Source: CMS Open Payments
Where the work is
The institutions with the most profiles on this list. Each links to its own page.
How this list is built
Who is listed: every profile whose published research or registered trial activity places them in Pain Medicine, read from OpenAlex topics, PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov. This KOL finder lists the area as a whole, sub-areas included.
How the grid is ordered: enriched profiles first, then by citations on OpenAlex. The directory lists the same people with every filter and sort it offers, including recent and rising activity, and exports the result.
What is never here: scraped contact details, prescription claims data, or a judgment of anyone's influence. Every count on this page is read from a public registry and republished with its source and the date it was last published.
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The 24 most cited
David Miller, MD
- —
- publications
- —
- h-index
- 1
- company
Abdullah Terkawi, MD
Stanford Medicine
- 136
- publications
- 49
- h-index
Herbert Meltzer, MD
- 1,057
- publications
- 119
- h-index
John Farrar, MD
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
- 386
- publications
- 86
- h-index
- 2
- companies
Laxmaiah Manchikanti, MD
University of Louisville
- 787
- publications
- 106
- h-index
Alan Kaye, MD
Tulane University
- 1,699
- publications
- 83
- h-index
- 20
- companies
Srinivasa Raja, MD
Johns Hopkins University
- 332
- publications
- 76
- h-index
- 2
- companies
Chad Brummett, MD
University of Michigan
- 414
- publications
- 73
- h-index
- 4
- companies
Lonnie Zeltzer, MD
University of California, Los Angeles
- 464
- publications
- 82
- h-index
- 2
- companies
Timothy Deer, MD
West Virginia University
- 613
- publications
- 75
- h-index
- 30
- companies
Charles Berde, MD, PhD
Boston Children's Hospital
- 372
- publications
- 71
- h-index
Ajay Wasan
- 305
- publications
- 71
- h-index
- 9
- companies
Jianren Mao, MD, PhD
Massachusetts General Hospital
- 219
- publications
- 64
- h-index
Miroslav Backonja, MD
- 132
- publications
- 43
- h-index
Jose Rios Russo, MD, ATC
- 369
- publications
- 59
- h-index
Nagy Mekhail, MD
- 302
- publications
- 68
- h-index
- 12
- companies
Benjamin Greer, MD
- 154
- publications
- 52
- h-index
Donald Manning, MD, PhD
- 48
- publications
- 26
- h-index
Brett Stacey, MD
University of Washington
- 116
- publications
- 38
- h-index
Omar Viswanath, MD
- 506
- publications
- 51
- h-index
- 14
- companies
Ivan Urits, MD
- 455
- publications
- 51
- h-index
- 35
- companies
Jane Ballantyne, MD
University of Washington
- 213
- publications
- 42
- h-index
Michael Stanton-Hicks, MD
- 310
- publications
- 49
- h-index
Peter Staats, MD
- 239
- publications
- 51
- h-index
- 19
- companies
Frequently asked questions
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