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Dr. Ariana M. Nelson is a board-certified anesthesiologist who specializes in interventional pain management, as well as in acute and chronic pain. Her clinical interests include back, joint, neck and nerve pain. She also is skilled in peripheral nerve and spinal cord stimulation.
She earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, Mich., followed by an internship at Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, also in Ann Arbor. She completed both a residency in anesthesiology and a fellowship in multidisciplinary pain management at the Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Nelson's research interests include aerospace medicine and exploring the medical capabilities needed for space exploration. She also studies the objective measurement of pain, opioid-related side effects, substance-use disorder and how cannabis can be used to alleviate pain. A member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the Spine Intervention Society, she has contributed to several book chapters on regional anesthesia and pain medicine.
In fall 2021, she was named one of 12 Dean's Scholars, a select group of UCI School of Medicine faculty members charged with implementing initiatives that advance the training and assessment of medical students' clinical skills and develop the next generation of medical education scholars and national leaders. She is also a core faculty member for the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC), a five-year, combined MD and master’s training program for physicians committed to serving under-resourced Latino communities.
Nelson, who also speaks Spanish, strives to improve her patients' quality of life through the use of non-opioid medications and state-of-the art pain management therapies.
She sees patients in Orange, Irvine and Tustin.