From his experiences of caring for patients with every imaginable form of pain, Dr. Fishman wrote The War on Pain (1999, Harper Collins). The book offers guidance and insights to dealing with the many manifestations of pain and approaches to pain management.

As a physician and psychiatrist — as the chief of a leading pain center — Fishman has a rare perspective on suffering. He understands that beyond the physical anguish, chronic pain isolates its victims while it devastates families, relationships and careers.

Too often, pain sufferers must do battle against a medical culture that is largely ill prepared to cope with their needs. And yet, as Dr. Fishman reports, breakthroughs in neuroscience, pharmacology, and mind-body therapies have given doctors and their patients the upper hand. He believes that all pain can be managed and that no one should have to suffer unnecessarily from pain.

Dr. Fishman is Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of California, Davis. Most recently, he was Medical Director of the MGH Pain Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital as well as Assistant Professor of Anesthesia and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fishman's medical degree is from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, his formal clinical training is in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry, and he is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, and Pain Medicine.

His major research interests include studies of how pain affects the body and how the body and mind affect pain. He focuses on understanding how pain is transmitted, how it causes biological damage to the nervous system, and how we can overcome pain with medical, surgical, and psychological approaches.

He continues to develop models of pain relief that alert a physician if a patient is at risk of becoming addicted to his or her pain medications. Moreover, he continues to work on physician and patient education about rational approaches to pain relief that will destigmatize treatment and reduce the high barriers that currently exist against treating pain. He has given testimony on pain-related issues to local governments as well as in the US Senate.