Dr. Eugene R. Viscusi is Director, Acute Pain Management Service in the Department of Anesthesiology at Jefferson Medical College in Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Viscusi is a graduate of Jefferson Medical College.  He has completed his residency in anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania and is board certified in anesthesiology and pain management.

 Dr. Viscusi is Director of Acute Pain Management at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.  His research interests include development of new pain management techniques, outcome studies with pain management, and the development of novel agents and delivery systems for pain management.  Dr. Viscusi directs a busy acute pain service with an emphasis on inpatient orthopedic surgery.      Dr. Viscusi has been a primary investigator of many emerging technologies in the perioperative arena.  Dr. Viscusi has lectured extensively at national and international meetings.

 The Acute Pain Management Service of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital employs a strong emphasis on the role of nurses.  Specially trained pain nurses play a critical role assessing and managing patients on the service.  Utilizing carefully designed protocols and education, nurses are able to improve patient care and cost effectiveness.

 Dr. Viscusi has published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Anesthesiology, Anesthesia and Analgesia, Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine as well as other journals. He has been featured and quoted in articles appearing in Newsweek, Philadelphia Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Philadelphia Inquirer.

 Dr. Viscusi currently serves on the editorial board of Seminars in Pain Medicine and The Clinical Journal of Pain, and reviews for Anesthesiology, Anesthesia and Analgesia, Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, and Techniques in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Management.

Dr. Jonathan L. Schaffer is a managing director of the Cleveland Clinic, a state-of-the-art digital information system offering a variety of Internet-based e-health services, including specialist second opinions, to patients around the globe.  Dr. Schaffer is also a staff member and Technology and Systems Chief in the Adult Reconstruction Section and leads the Advanced Operative Technology Group in the Orthopedic Clinical Research Center and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Cleveland Clinic.  His clinical interests include the treatment of arthritic knees and the application of new technologies in surgical care.

 Dr. Schaffer is an active member of many professional societies including the American College of Physician Executives, the American Orthopedic Association, the American Society for Quality and the American Medical Informatics Association.  He is an elected fellow of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and was named to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. He is also active with public safety forces including his services to his community as an on-call firefighter and police department surgeon.  A frequent lecturer at regional, national and international information technology and medical meetings, Dr. Schaffer has authored more than 125 articles, book chapters and textbooks.  In addition, he has developed a number of multimedia programs and computer software applications on patient outcomes, process engineering and patient education.  He and his teams have received several awards for medical Web site development.

Dr. William Schmidt is currently the head of NorthStar Consulting, LLC, which specializes in providing advice on preclinical and clinical studies of novel analgesic drugs. Dr. Schmidt was previously VP, Clinical Research, for Renovis, Inc., in South San Francisco, CA, an emerging biopharmaceutical company developing drugs to treat stroke, chronic neurological diseases, and pain. Prior to Renovis, Dr. Schmidt was VP, Scientific Affairs, at Adolor Corporation in Exton, PA, where he was a key member of the team leading to the clinical development and NDA filing of Entereg (alvimopan). Dr. Schmidt continues as a Scientific Advisory Consultant to both Adolor and Renovis.

 Dr. Schmidt is Immediate Past President of the Eastern Pain Association, the largest regional affiliate of the American Pain Society. He has over 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience with a special emphasis on the discovery and development of novel analgesic and narcotic antagonist drugs. He is the co-editor of Pain: Current Understanding, Emerging, Therapies, and Novel Approaches to Drug Discovery (Marcel Dekker, 2003; 2nd edition in preparation). Dr. Schmidt received his PhD in Pharmacology from the University of California, San Francisco. Following his postdoctoral fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Schmidt joined DuPont Pharmaceuticals (later the DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company) where he helped to develop Nubain, Trexan, ReVia and the oxycodone-ibuprofen formulation used in Combunox™

Dr. Mary Southam received her BS and MS from University California, Los Angeles in Kinesiology and earned her PhD in Behavioral Healthcare from Stanford University.  She began her career as a Research Associate in the department of Psychiatry at Stanford University conducting research in the areas of cardiology and psychiatry. She has also served as Assistant Professor at Oregon State University.  After Stanford she went on to hold numerous positions at ALZA Corporation in Mountain View, California.

 Dr. Southam joined ALZA Corporation in 1984 and most recently held the position of Vice President of Technology Assessment.  Prior to that she held the position of Research Fellow / Executive Director of Clinical Development. She is currently a clinical consultant in the Pharmaceutical industry.

 Dr. Southam has published in Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Advances in Pain Research and Therapy, Psychosomatic Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology as well as other journals.

Rosemary Polomano received her BSN and MSN from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and earned her PhD from the University of Maryland School of Nursing in 1995. She began her career as a staff nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and went on to advance her career by assuming positions as an Advanced Practice Nurse in Oncology and Pain Management. In 1998, after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in laboratory research at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, Dr. Polomano accepted a position at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center and College of Medicine to pursue a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Nursing Research, investigating Taxol-induced peripheral neuropathy. There, she advanced to the positions of Director, Outcomes Research, Department of Nursing and Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pennsylvania State College of Medicine. Dr. Polomano returned to the University of Pennsylvania in August 2004.

Dr. Polomano has participated in several national advisory boards and has been involved in many initiatives to improve pain management. Currently, she is an ad hoc member of the NIH Integrative Functional and Cognitive Neuroscience Study Section. Dr. Polomano has lectured throughout the country on pain-related topics including the assessment and management of pain in long term care.