Pain Academy
The PAIN Academy is CTMSS’s newly developed training program tailored to providers interested in utilizing TMS for pain disorders. Attendees in this track will participate in the following lecture series.
What do attendees learn?
- Review of Pain Pathophysiology, Classification, and Assessment as it relates to TMS as a therapeutic modality for treating Pain Disorders.
- Review of Foundational and Pivotal trials for Utilization of TMS as a therapeutic modality for Pain
- Overview of Outcome Evidence and current evidence-based protocols for TMS for chronic neuropathic pain, acute pain, fibromyalgia, headache/migraine, CRPS, Cancer Pain and peripheral Magnetic Stimulation
- Overview of TMS Technology including Neuronavigation principles
- Practical clinical treatment considerations for pain clinics and case discussions
Next opportunity to attend:
PULSES & Pain Academy: October 2026
Date: 15 October 2026
Who Attends the Pain Academy?
The Pain Academy content is designed for a wide range of medical and clinical professionals seeking comprehensive education and practical skills in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Our attendees include:
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Anesthesiologists
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Neurologists
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Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants
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Pain Management Providers
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Physiatrists
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Primary Care / Behavioral Health Care Providers
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Psychiatrists
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TMS Clinical Researchers
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TMS Technicians
If you are currently offering TMS or plan to integrate TMS into your practice or clinical research, the CTMSS Pain Academy offers the essential knowledge and hands-on training you need.
Our Experts
The Pain Academy is led by a distinguished international faculty of highly skilled clinicians, researchers, and pioneers in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Each faculty member brings extensive real-world experience, groundbreaking research, and deep insights from diverse clinical settings globally. Their dedication to advancing TMS education ensures that participants receive comprehensive, evidence-based training directly from the field's most respected leaders. This collective expertise provides an unparalleled learning experience, preparing you for successful TMS practice.
Click on a headshot to learn more.
Christina Hughes, MD, FCTMSS
Director
Anna Woodbury, MD
Deputy Director
Albert Y. Leung, MD
Faculty
Mowafak Abdelghani, MBBCH, MSc, FRCA, MD, FFPMRCA
Faculty
Habenom Gedey, MD
Faculty
Mehmet Dokucu, MD, PhD
Faculty
Kevin A. Johnson, PhD, RN
Faculty
Julian Chase Motzkin, MD PhD
Faculty
Daniel Ciampi de Andrade
Faculty
Michael Vaninetti
Faculty
Prices
Member Discounts
Trainee & Student Prices
Pain Academy Director
Christina Hughes, MD, FCTMSS
Dr. Christina Hughes is the Medical Director for the Kitsap and Tacoma division of Seattle Neuropsychiatric Treatment Center (SeattleNTC) and the Pain Academy Course Director. She is a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician with fellowship training in Multiple Sclerosis. In addition to founding the CTMSS Pain Academy training course, she is on the CTMSS Board of Directors, is active in the Society’s Training Committee, Membership Committee, and Mentorship Programs. Dr. Hughes is trained on MagVenture, MagStim, Neurostar, and Brainsway devices. With a clinical interest in TMS for more than 10 years, Dr. Hughes specializes in neurorehabilitation with a passion for expanding awareness and access to high-quality, non-invasive treatments for depression and other neuro-psychiatric disorders. She is also active in the non-profit FACTMS (Foundation for the Advancement of Clinical TMS) and helped the foundation establish its first TMS clinic for underserved populations, the Neil S. Hirsch Clinic at the Kitsap Mental Health Services in Washington State.
Pain Academy Faculty
Albert Y. Leung, MD
Dr. Albert Leung is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. He is the founder and Director of the Center for Pain and Headache Research and Center for TMS at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. His research, which includes the application of transcranial or transcutaneous magnetic stimulation for pain or headaches, has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense, and the Veteran Affairs Office of Research and Development and Technology Transfer Program. His work has been published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. He is the lead author of the international TMS consensus panel guideline paper for pain. In addition to serving as a founding faculty for the PAIN ACADEMY Course, Dr. Leung is actively involved with CTMSS, is on the Board of Directors and is Co-chair of the Training Committee. He is a member of the editorial board and a Deputy Editor of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Developing Indications, Pain & Headache.
Pain Academy Faculty
Mowafak Abdelghani, MBBCH, MSc, FRCA, MD, FFPMRCA
Dr. Mowafak Abdelghani is the founder and lead physician at Piccadilly Medical. He is also the Clinical Lead for Chronic Pain Services at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Trafford General Hospital and Altrincham General Hospital and a Consultant in Pain Medicine and Anaesthesia at Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. His undergraduate and initial postgraduate training in medicine and anaesthesia was undertaken at one of the largest and most historic teaching hospitals, Ain-Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and a Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine by examination.
Pain Academy Faculty
Habenom Gedey, MD
Dr. Habenom Gedeyis Lead Physician at Neuromed Clinic in Edmonton, Canada, and Clinical Lead for Chronic Pain and Neurogenic Mental Health Disorders at Neuromed Clinic in Dublin, Ireland. He is actively engaged in clinical governance and quality improvement through the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) and contributes to education and EDI initiatives with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE). He completed postgraduate training in Algology and focuses on neuromodulation and multidisciplinary care for complex pain and neurogenic disorders.
Pain Academy Deputy Director
Anna Woodbury, MD
Dr. Anna Woodbury is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Research for Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and founded the Pain Division at the Atlanta VA Health Care System. Her clinical and research interests focus on chronic pain, central sensitization syndromes, and noninvasive neuromodulation, including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. She directs translational pain research programs investigating novel brain- and nerve-targeted approaches for chronic pain syndromes. Dr. Woodbury serves on the Board of Directors for the United States Association for the Study of Pain (USASP), and in addition to aiding in curriculum development for the inaugural CTMSS Pain Academy training course, serves on several CTMSS committees related to training and organizes the CTMSS Pain Special Interest Council.
Pain Academy Faculty
Kevin A. Johnson, PhD, RN
Dr. Kevin Johnson is a neuroscientist, registered nurse, and research faculty member at the Florida State University College of Medicine. He is the co-founder and Co-Director of FSU Neuromodulation, where he advances transcranial magnetic stimulation for psychiatric disorders and pain management. His early research helped refine prefrontal TMS positioning and dosing in the multisite OPT-TMS clinical trial for depression. His pain-focused TMS work includes fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, and studies evaluating TMS comfort and scalp tolerability across stimulation parameters. He has also used neuroimaging to investigate chronic pelvic pain and chronic low back pain. His research program includes a stepwise sequence of virtual reality and accelerated TMS for PTSD, as well as pairing musical stimulation with TMS for pain management. Dr. Johnson previously held research and product-development roles at Stanford University, Neuronetics, and Johnson & Johnson. He serves as Deputy Editor for Special Issues and Regulatory Affairs for the journal Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
Pain Academy Faculty
Julian Chase Motzkin, MD PhD
Dr. Julian Motzkin is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco, where he specializes in interventional pain medicine and serves as a founding member of the UCSF Trigeminal Neuralgia Program. His research focuses on developing precision neuromodulation therapies for chronic pain using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), TMS-EEG, and computational neuroscience approaches to identify neural circuit biomarkers of treatment response. Dr. Motzkin is the principal investigator of multiple NIH-funded studies evaluating TMS for neuropathic facial pain and chronic pain disorders, including a multicenter Phase III clinical trial of TMS for trigeminal neuropathic pain. His work aims to develop objective biomarkers and personalized brain stimulation strategies to improve the diagnosis and treatment of chronic pain. He serves on international guideline and consensus initiatives in therapeutic TMS and has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on neuromodulation and pain neuroscience.
Pain Academy Faculty
Daniel Ciampi de Andrade
Daniel Ciampi de Andrade is a neurologist, Professor and Principal Investigator at the Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP), Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, He trained in medicine and neurology at the University of São Paulo, with additional clinical training in France, and holds a PhD in Neurology and Higher Doctorate (dr.med). from Aalborg University. His research addresses the mechanisms, assessment, and treatment of chronic pain, with particular emphasis on the clinical evaluation of people living with pain, pain in neurological disorders, pharmacological therapy, non-invasive neuromodulation, cortical neurophysiology, and biomarker informed treatment strategies. He integrates transcranial magnetic stimulation, electroencephalography, and combined TMS-EEG with psychophysical and clinical methods to identify circuit-level markers capable of guiding individualized brain stimulation. He is principal investigator of the European Research Council project PersoNINpain, a randomized biomarker-strategy trial examining whether TMS-EEG-derived cortical markers can direct repetitive TMS target selection in chronic pain.
He has led clinical and translational pain research programs in Brazil and Denmark and serves as principal investigator on national and European funded projects. He has authored more than 220 PubMed-indexed publications and has held editorial and scientific leadership roles for several pain-related journals and societies, including the European Pain Federation. He also founded SmerteStemmer, a Danish patient panel dedicated to chronic pain education and public engagement.
Pain Academy Faculty
Michael Vaninetti
Dr. Michael Vaninetti is an Associate Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. He serves as the Chief of Pain Medicine at the VA San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS), where he oversees a high-volume clinical practice specializing in high-acuity interventional pain management. A core focus of his clinical and research work is advanced neuromodulation, specifically the utilization of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for complex conditions such as phantom limb pain and headaches related to mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI).
Pain Academy Faculty
Mehmet Dokucu, MD, PhD, DFAPA
Dr. Mehmet Dokucu is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine and the Director of the Dartmouth Health’s Mood Disorders and Interventional Psychiatry Program in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Dr. Dokucu is a broadly trained neuroscientist (PhD) and academic psychiatrist (MD) with expertise in ECT, TMS, Consultation Liaison Psychiatry and Psycho-oncology. He was the founding Director of the TMS program at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and has conducted several TMS clinical trials. He is actively involved in the training of medical students and psychiatry residents. He was recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2019. He has been a CTMSS member since 2013 and has served on several committees. He is currently the co-chair of the Annual Meeting Committee.