Joseph Tasker Gundy, M.D.

A graduate of Oberlin College and Weill Cornell Medical School, Dr. Gundy completed residency and fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he was recognized for distinction in research. He is double-board certified in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, with interests that include a...

A graduate of Oberlin College and Weill Cornell Medical School, Dr. Gundy completed residency and fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he was recognized for distinction in research. He is double-board certified in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, with interests that include acute traumatic and postsurgical pain management, prevention of persistent postsurgical pain, opioid-sparing anesthesia and opioid risk reduction, geriatric anesthesia and geriatric pain, ”greengional” anesthesia and environmental sustainability in health care.

Dr. Gundy’s fellowship in pain medicine coincided with the apex of our national opioid epidemic, and he carried with him into practice an advocacy for opioid-sparing treatment strategies. After fellowship he directed a hospital-based outpatient pain center, applying a conservative philosophy that promoted low-risk treatment approaches aimed at reducing pain with minimal adverse effects, and emphasized wellness strategies to restore function. Acknowledging the need for a collaborative approach to the opioid dilemma, he spearheaded a comprehensive opioid safety referral program, which—integrating input from colleagues in hospital administration, primary care, addiction medicine, psychiatry and social work—was incorporated into the network’s pain referral infrastructure.

Dr. Gundy joined the faculty of URMC in 2019, completing a second fellowship in Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine. As a physician who now routinely treats patients with acute postoperative pain—having previously cared for countless others with persistent postsurgical pain—he is uniquely suited to be piloting the division’s new interdisciplinary Transitional Pain Service, motivated by the opportunity to redirect the postsurgical pain trajectory before it develops chronicity.