Karina Gritsenko, MD

Karina Gritsenko, MD, is Program Director, Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship and Professor, Anesthesiology, Family & Social Medicine and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Montefiore Einstein. Dr. Gritsenko is an interventional pain physician with an outpatient chronic pain practice and also an anesthesiologist with an interest in regional anesthesia techniques and acute pain service. She is particularly passionate about the development of systems of care, cancer pain, acute pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain, sympathetic mediated pain, spinal cord stimulation, spinal pain and substance abuse. She strongly believes in treating her patients as she would want her family treated, with compassion and professionalism.

After earning her Bachelor of Arts at Brandeis University in 2002, Dr. Gritsenko attended the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, earning her Doctor of Medicine in 2006. She began her postgraduate training with a transitional medicine, surgery and anesthesiology internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, followed by an anesthesiology residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, which she completed in 2010. She continued her training with a tri-institutional fellowship in acute and chronic pain medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Hospital of Special Surgery, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, completing it in 2011.

Dr. Gritsenko’s research focuses on acute pain, perioperative pain, regional anesthesia and chronic pain topics. She also has particular interest in medical education, mentorship, and the organization of care. Dr. Gritsenko has shared her work through many peer-reviewed journals, textbooks, and international, national and regional presentations. She is also a reviewer for several journals including Neuromodulation, Pain Practice, and Pain Medicine Case Reports.

Dr. Gritsenko is board certified in Anesthesiology, Pain Medicine, and Hospice and Palliative Care Medicine. She is a member of several professional societies including the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, American Society of Pain and Neuroscience, and the American Society of Regional Anesthesia. Dr. Gritsenko has won numerous awards including the ASIPP Rising Star Award, Outstanding Pain Physician of the Year, and has been listed several times in the New York Times Magazine list of Super Doctors.