FirstHealth to Open Back & Neck Pain Office in Sanford
| Date Posted: 5/11/2012
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Brian K. Thwaites, M.D. |
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James V. Winkley, M.D. |
SANFORD – Residents of Lee and Harnett counties and surrounding communities will have local access to the specialty pain management services of the FirstHealth Back & Neck Pain Center with the opening of a satellite clinic in Sanford next month.
Located at 1227 Carthage St. (in the Carolina Eye Associates building), the office will be staffed by Brian K. Thwaites, M.D., and James V. Winkley, M.D., of Pinehurst Anesthesia Associates. Both physicians are board certified in anesthesiology as well as pain management.
Their Sanford office will be open for appointments every Tuesday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., beginning June 12, with the potential for additional days as necessary.
According to Dr. Thwaites, the Sanford office is being opened as a convenience to the many Back & Neck Pain Center patients who now travel from the Lee/Harnett area to Pinehurst for their pain care. “Now, they will have the advantages of a local office staffed by board certified pain specialists,” he says.
Both Dr. Thwaites and Dr. Winkley are trained in every interventional pain technique now being done in North Carolina. One is the MILD (Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression) procedure, a highly successful therapy for lower back pain that is caused by spinal stenosis.
Currently, only seven North Carolina pain specialists are certified to perform the MILD procedure and three of those seven – Drs. Thwaites and Winkley and Paul Kuzma, M.D. – are affiliated with the FirstHealth Back & Neck Pain Center.
Dr. Thwaites received his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas and his medical degree from the Northwestern University Medical School in Evanston, Ill. He completed his internship at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii and his anesthesiology residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Winkley received his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and earned his medical degree from the Uniform Service University of Health Sciences in Maryland. He completed his internship and his anesthesiology residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
The Sanford office of the FirstHealth Back & Neck Pain Center will open on Tuesday, June 12. To make an appointment with either of the pain specialists there, please call (919) 774-0665.
