Revolutionizing Spinal Surgery Pain Management with Dr. Michael Park

Michael chats with Dr. Michael Park, Professor at the University of Minnesota, Neurosurgeon at M Health Fairview, Chief Technology Officer of SynerFuse®, and the primary inventor of SynerFuse® technology. Together, they discuss the reality of spinal surgery and the patient experience today, how SynerFuse® has combined spinal fusion with dorsal root ganglion stimulation in a single surgery, how that innovation has proved to be safe, how that innovation has proved to reduce post-surgery pain and opioid use, how SynerFuse® is aiming to advance the procedure into regular practice, where spinal surgery is headed in the future, and much more.

Learn more about SynerFuse® at www.SynerFuse.com.

About Our Guest

Dr. Park is a former principal investigator of the SynerFuse® proof-of-concept clinical trial and primary inventor of SynerFuse® technology. He is a board-certified neurosurgeon, an associate professor, MnDRIVE neuromodulation scholar, William P. Van Wagenen Fellow, and director of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery in the Department of Neurosurgery and Neurology at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Park has extensive experience with neuromodulation—deep brain stimulation. This surgical therapy for brain conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, and dystonia modulates brain activity to treat symptoms. He also uses neuromodulation such as spinal cord stimulation and intrathecal drug delivery to treat cancer pain and chronic pain. In addition, working with epilepsy specialists, Dr. Park performs procedures such as surgical placement of depth and grid electrodes in the brain to identify abnormal epileptic brain areas and offer treatments which include resection, response neural stimulator (NeuroPace) placement, laser ablation, and vagal nerve stimulation. If patients are unable to have surgery, Dr. Park is able to treat some of the conditions using Gamma Knife radiosurgery as well.

Dr. Park received his dual Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in economics and electrical engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Arts in biology from the University of Kansas. He holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from the School of Medicine and Graduate Studies, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, at the University of Kansas. He completed his neurosurgery residency at the Rhode Island Hospital/Brown University. He was awarded the prestigious William P. Van Wagenen Fellowship from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and completed his fellowship with Dr. Jean Régis at the Université de la Méditerranée Aix-Marseille II, Assistance Publique L’Hôpital d’Adulte de la Timone in Marseille, France, in 2010. He was an Assistant Professor and the Director of Functional Neurosurgery and Pain in the Department of Neurosurgery at University of Louisville until 2014.