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Joshua P. Prager, M.D., M.S. completed his pre-medical studies at Harvard University. He attended Stanford University School of Medicine where he simultaneously received a Master's Degree in management/health services research. He completed internal medicine training at UCLA and anesthesiology training at Stanford Medical Center and Harvard Medical School at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is board certified in internal medicine and anesthesiology and is also board certified in pain medicine through both The American Board of Anesthesiology and The American Board of Pain Medicine. Dr. Prager has held full-time positions on the faculty of Harvard Medical School at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA where was the director of the UCLA Pain Medicine Center. Dr. Prager currently is the director of the Center for the Rehabilitation of Pain Syndromes (CRPS) at UCLA Medical Plaza. He is a faculty member in the Department of Internal Medicine and Anesthesiology at UCLA and a member of the Faculty Executive Committee of the School of Medicine. Dr. Prager is past-president and Senior advisor to the Board of the North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS), the society of physicians who implant devices in the nervous system to control pain, spasticity and other nervous system disorders. He served two consecutive two year terms as Chair of the Complex Region Pain Syndrome Group of the International Association for the Study of Pain, the largest organization of Pain practitioners and researchers in the world. Dr. Prager has delivered the Decade of Pain Lecture at the American Academy of Pain Medicine annual meeting. He received an award for leadership and contributions by the California Society of Anesthesiologists and is editor of its continuing medical education program on pain and end of life care. Dr. Prager has twice received teaching awards in the Department of Anesthesiology at UCLA for teaching in pain medicine. He has received the Bounty of Hope award by the Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of America for patient care and contributions to the RSD community. . He has served as a pain expert for the California Department of Worker's Compensation in developing guidelines to treat the injured worker. Dr. Prager believes that voluntary work is an important component of his career. He has volunteered providing internal medicine care at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic as well as providing anesthesia for Third World children undergoing correction of congenital anomalies through the Organization Interplast. He serves as a consultant to Medicare on both a local and national level. He has lectured extensively in Europe, Asia and Australia. He has served as chair of one and participation in a second evidence based medicine guidelines project, chair of a best practices project, and chair of a coalition of physician societies and other organizations to insure patient access to specific pain treatments. Dr. Prager frequently concludes many of his lectures with his credo, “No patient should ever wish for death because of the unwillingness of a provider or third party payor to provide pain relief without untoward side effects.”