Divya Agrawal, M.D., a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, has joined Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush (MOR).
Divya Agrawal, M.D. Joins Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush
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Dr. Agrawal, a pain management specialist with a sub-specialty in non-surgical interventional spine care, has published studies on facet joint interventions and has co-authored a book chapter on facet joint imaging. She has also served as a lecturer on fluoroscopic spine imaging and proctor for interventional spine procedures for the North American Spine Society.
Dr. Agrawal earned her medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, then completed her residency training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the New York Presbyterian Hospitals of Columbia and Cornell. She completed her sub-specialty training in interventional spine and pain management at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
According to Midwest Orthopedics, Dr. Agrawal’s specialty procedures “include cervical, thoracic, and lumbar epidural steroid injections and facet joint injections and rhizotomy. She also specializes in sacroiliac and peripheral joint injections. Dr. Agrawal is an expert in spinal cord stimulator trials, lumbar discography, genicular nerve block and radiofrequency ablation of knee joint, and selective nerve root block procedures.”
Dr. Agrawal told OTW, “In my opinion, the most important non-surgical issue in spine care, aside from the well-established and ongoing opioid epidemic, is educating patients on the necessity of making regular home or gym exercise a part of their life, whether or not they are experiencing pain at the time.”
“Often, patients go for physical therapy (PT), respond very well, but then go back to their old lifestyle and habits. Ultimately, they end up back in my office with a recurrence of their pain. It’s a difficult lesson to teach, but I always try my best to educate my patients that physical therapy isn’t a cure. It’s a teaching tool, and patients must take what they learn from their PT sessions and incorporate it into their everyday lives.”
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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