Donna Kalauokalani, MD, MPH
Co-Founder Missouri Pain Initiative, Director of Pain Telemedicine Clinic at the Center for Health Technology at UCD Medical Center
Dr. Kalauokalani received her medical degree from the University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine. She is Board Certified in both Anesthesiology and Pain Management, and has completed post-graduate training in Anesthesiology, Pain Medicine, Preventive Medicine, Public Health, and Health Services Research. She has also completed a prestigious fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar's program, and has obtained her master's degree in Public Health at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. K has extensive experience in multidisciplinary pain management for chronic pain, most notably those associated with chronic conditions and cancer. While on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis Missouri, Dr. K co-founded and chaired the Missouri Pain Initiative. In 2003, she won the National Congressional Committee's Leadership Award as Honorary Chair (Missouri) Physicians Advisory Board, was selected as one of America's Top Physicians, and was recognized for Outstanding Commitment to the People of Missouri by the Missouri Pain Initiative.
Recently, Dr. K has had the opportunity to provide consultative services to the California State Prisons in a number of capacities. While on faculty at the University of California Davis, she established and directed the Pain Telemedicine Clinic in the Center for Health Technology at UCD Medical Center. She has also developed a program to improve the quality of care for the management of chronic pain in the corrections system, providing foundational training to the primary care workforce there.
Doctor's recent projects include:
- evaluating a tailored patient education and coaching technique to reduce cancer related pain (funded by the American Cancer Society);
- studying Racial Disparities in Treating Occupational Low Back Pain (funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality);
- evaluating the Community Oriented Pain-Management Exchange (COPE) Program (funded by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation);
Her research interests focus on the access and delivery of care to vulnerable populations, and on understanding the factors that influence need, demand and utilization of both conventional and alternative pain management services.
Dr. Kalauokalani lectures nationally and internationally on a wide range of topics related to pain medicine. She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Chronic Pain Association, recently being appointed president-elect of the organization. In addition, she is a member of the International Association of the Study of Pain and regularly participates in the International Forum for Low Back Pain Research in primary Care. She serves as reviewer for various medical journals, publishes on a broad range of pain medicine topics, and serves as Editor for Resource Reviews for Pain Medicine, journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. She has served as organizing committee member and Vice-Chair for the Disparities in Pain section of the American Pain Society. She advocates nationally for equal access to pain care and educates practitioners and policy makers in various settings about optimal pain treatment.
