Samer Narouze, M.D.

Samer N. Narouze, MD, MS, is Program Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Pain Medicine Fellowship program. He is board-certified in anesthesia pain management, pain medicine, headache medicine, as well as anesthesiology. He also has a Master's Degree in anesthesia and critical care medicine. His specialty interests focus on pain management, particularly interventional headache medicine

Dr. Narouze’s clinical research as primary or Principal Investigator has focused on pain management techniques for chronic headaches such as cervicogenic, cluster and migraine. In 2005 he received the Cambridge College Award for Medical Achievement, Cambridge, United Kingdom. He was selected as one of America’s Top Pain Medicine Physicians in 2007 by the Consumers’ Research Council of America.

He is author or co-author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and abstracts in leading medical journals and has contributed chapters to medical textbooks related to his specialty interests.

Dr. Narouze served as Chair of the special interest group on interventional management of head and face pain for the American Headache Society, 2006-2007. He also pioneered the use of ultrasound-guided nerve blocks in chronic pain medicine, and he leads the special interest group on ultrasound-guided pain procedures for the American Society of Regional Anesthesia.

• Chair of the special interest group on ultrasound-guided pain procedures for the American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA)
• Chair of the special interest group on interventional management of head and face pain for the American Headache Society (AHS), 2006-2007
• Medical Reviewer for Pain Medicine Journal
• Medical Reviewer for Clinical Journal of Anesthesia
• Medical Reviewer for Acta Anesthesiologica Scandinavia

• Headache Medicine board certification by the United Council for Neurological Subspecialties
• Ultrasound-guided procedures training at Innsbruck University, Austria
• Ultrasound-guided nerve blocks training at the University of Toronto, Canada
• Acupuncture training at Stanford University
• Peripheral nerve blocks training at Yale University

Pain Medicine

Anesthesiology

• First radiofrequency ablation of the atlantoaxial (C1-C2) joint for patients with cervicogenic headaches and whiplash injury
• First use of ultrasound-guided technique to perform cervical nerve root blocks to avoid the known devastating complication associated with the classic fluoroscopy technique secondary to injury to the vertebral or radicular arteries
• Dr. Narouze showed for the first time that the radicular arteries can be identified with high-resolution ultrasonography and hence injury can be avoided by using an ultrasound-guided approach
• First percutaneous femoral peripheral nerve stimulator implant with ultrasound guidance without surgical exploration

• America's Top Pain Physicians, Consumers' Research Council of America, 2007
• Cambridge College Award for medical achievement, Cambridge, U.K., 2005
• ASRA Pain Fellows Scholarship, 2002
• Chief Fellow, Pain Management, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, 2002
• Midwest Anesthesia Resident Conference, research award, 2002
• Ohio Society of Anesthesiologists-Resident Component Research Contest Award, 2002
• Midwest Anesthesia Resident Conference, 1^st place research award, 2001
• Midwest Anesthesia Resident Conference, 1^st place research award, 2000
• Anesthesia Residents and Fellows Research Day, Cleveland Clinic, 1^st place research award, 2000

• American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA)
• American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM)
• American Headache Society (AHS)
• American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA)
• American Medical Association (AMA)