Welcome to Shore Comprehensive Pain Care

Shore Comprehensive Pain Care, the pain center located at The Memorial Hospital at Easton, offers a unique, effective and state-of-the-art approach to pain management. The center takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the treatment of chronic pain, combining the best of traditional medical care with alternative medical options.

The mission of Shore Comprehensive Pain Care is to create a personalized plan for each pain patient in order to best restore quality of life. Patients will have access to physicians specializing in pain management; a team of dedicated nurses; a psychologist specialized in pain management; and a physical therapist, who specializes in spinal care and back injuries. The center will also refer patients to the Shore Health System Center for Integrative Medicine, when appropriate, for massage therapy and acupuncture. The center will see patients by referral from primary care physicians, orthopedists, neurosurgeons, and other medical specialists.

"Chronic pain is a multi-faceted problem that requires a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment plan," says William Scott, DO, medical director for Shore Comprehensive Pain Care. "We will focus on the whole person, rather than episodic pain management."

Continuum of care begins with an hour-long physical and medical consultation with Dr. Scott or his partner Jennifer Marks, DO. The diagnostic session includes a work history; recent and past injuries; past surgeries and treatments; and medication history. From this personal profile, the physicians will develop a specific and targeted treatment plan for each patient.

The physicians will use the latest equipment and techniques, including electrodiagnosis and neuroconduction studies, to pin-point the precise nerve or location that is generating the pain. Treatment might consist of minimally-invasive outpatient procedures, such as trigger point injection or peripheral joint injection, which normally take less than an hour and do not require general anesthesia. Other image-guided interventional procedures include spinal cord stimulation and radiofrequency ablation.

"While chronic pain has often been treated primarily with medications, our emphasis will focus on treatment options that don’t involve opiates or controlled substances," Dr. Scott says. For those patients who do require medication, opiods and controlled substances will be the last options, not the first. Patients who are prescribed controlled substances will be required to sign and abide by the terms of a contract, which will lay out the conditions required to obtain and continue to receive narcotics.

The physicians at Shore Comprehensive Pain Care will act as primary care physicians for pain management, and coordinate the various aspects of a pain care plan. A multi-disciplinary team will meet weekly for roundtable discussions of patient cases. "Our goal is to minimize pain and maximize our patient’s quality of life," Dr. Marks says.

Shore Comprehensive Pain Center is located at The Memorial Hospital at Easton, 219 S. Washington Street. For more information, call 410-820-6517.