Cornell Comparative Pain

We are thrilled to announce that the Section of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine in the Cornell University Hospital for Animals has just been approved as the first ACVAA pain management fellowship program site. We wish to express our sincere thanks to the ACVAA Board of Directors and the ACVAA Pain Management Fellowship Committee.

The fellowship will encompass both small and large animal clinical pain management with a focus on regional and interventional anesthesia. Further details about the structure of the program will follow. Stay tuned...

Honored to be featured in Golden Retriever Club of Canada's March 2026 Magazine🐾

Have a look at our newest publication! Although epidural injection need not be performed in every cat undergoing ovariohysterectomy (OVH, spay), there are specific situations in which it may be useful, and OVH serves as a model of pain in cats undergoing other abdominal surgeries as well as non-surgical abdominal pain caused by diseases such as pancreatitis.

Sacrococcygeal epidural injection of morphine and ropivacaine provides analgesia after feline ovariohysterectomy Abstract Objective To determine if sacrococcygeal epidural injection (SCEI) provides analgesia after feline ovariohysterectomy (OVH). Methods Systemically healthy intact cats were randomly assigned to control or epidural groups (n = 29 each). After standard analgesic premedication IM, propofol induc...

Thank you to our colleagues and friends at Weill Cornell Medical Anesthesia in Manhattan for the shout-out on Instagram! We couldn't provide the services we do for the animals without your help.

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Dr. Rohan Jotwani is uniting disciplines between human and veterinary medicine. Recently featured in “New hope and compassionate care for animal patients in pain,” Dr. Jotwani brings his expertise in human anesthesiology and pain management to Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine as newly appointed adjunct faculty. Through the Comparative Pain Program, he’s helping advance pain care across species. "As a lover of animals, I’m honored and excited to use my expertise in human pain management to advance veterinary pain care,” says Dr. Jotwani. “Bridging human and veterinary medicine allows us to uncover shared insights in pain mechanisms, therapies and innovation that benefit both people and animals. Pain in animals is often under-recognized, and I’m proud to collaborate with this first-of-its-kind program to change that narrative.” 📖 Read full article: Link in bio Our residency program also offers a unique elective at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine for CA-3s to gain hands-on experience in veterinary anesthesia techniques. 📸 Dr. Jotwani with his cat Peep. @weillcornell @cornellvet @wcmpain @nyphospital #Anesthesiology #VeterinaryAnesthesia #PainManagement #CornellVet #WeillCornell #MedicalEducation #MedEd #ResidencyProgram #VeterinaryMedicine

Sometimes the best Christmas presents can't be found in a store. Drake, a handsome 13-year-old golden retriever, returned home to his family yesterday after undergoing open-chest surgery and removal of part of his right lung. The Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine Service helped the Critical Care and Surgery Services manage his postoperative pain by performing two different nerve blocks (intercostal and serratus ventralis plane) with a sustained-release local anesthetic and by placing an epidural catheter for repeated delivery of morphine and local anesthetic. Drake was critically ill but walked out under his own power. We are overjoyed for Drake and his family and honored to have contributed to his pain relief. *Posted with owner permission*

It's that time of year again! Our third year veterinary students are anesthetizing and spaying shelter cats. A core competency is learning how to provide perioperative pain relief and monitor for signs of pain using validated feline pain scales.

Posted with owner permission...
Meet Parker! Parker presented to the Pain Medicine Service for treatment of presumptive trigeminal neuralgia last summer. Found as a stray, he would rub his left face against the floor and experience unprovoked episodes of yelping, panicking, and running away - classic symptoms of neuropathic (nerve) pain. (A comprehensive work-up failed to reveal dental or dermatological disease.) He was treated successfully with CT-guided pulsed radiofrequency of the left maxillary nerve, followed by perineural steroid injection, at the rostral alar foramen, where the nerve emerges from the skull. Parker has been pain-free for almost four months. Stay tuned for publication of the full case report!

The Comparative Pain Program was represented at the NIH Pain in Animals (PAW) workshop this week! We shared our work on the development of a neuropathic-nociplastic pain scale for veterinary patients, with an eye toward using naturally-occurring neuropathic pain states in animals as models for human neuropathic pain.

We serve large animals too! Much of the time, adult horses and cattle can remain standing under sedation and local anesthetic infiltration for epidural injection and catheterization. This means that we usually travel to the patient's stall in the ICU or wards with our rolling cart rather than bringing the patient to our procedure room. Research (supported by the Harry M. Zweig Memorial Fund for Equine Research) on refinement of epidural drug protocols in horses to maximize analgesia and minimize side effects such as constipation (ileus) is underway.