Topic: The Mystery of Persistent Pain After Injury: A career as an anesthesiologist physician-scientist

Speaker: Viviane Tawfik, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Stanford University

Dr. Tawfik is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative & Pain Medicine. She received her BSc in biochemistry from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She then moved south of the border to pursue her MD and PhD in neuroscience, with a focus on basic pain mechanisms, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH.

After a year of surgical internship at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Dr. Tawfik moved to California to pursue her residency training in anesthesiology as part of the Fellowship in Anesthesia Research and Medicine (FARM) program, of which she now serves as the Director. After completion of her subspecialty fellowship training in pain medicine, Dr. Tawfik joined the faculty at Stanford and continues to research the immune contribution to persistent pain while treating patients suffering from chronic pain.

In addition to pursuing exciting scientific questions in a clinically-informed way, Dr. Tawfik enjoys mentoring students and other trainees. She is co-president of the early-Stage Anesthesiology Scholars (eSAShq.org), a group focused on providing an academic home for junior anesthesiologist-scientists.