Daniel Choi, MD: INTERVENTIONAL PAIN MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST

Dr. Choi grew up in the City of Angels with a dream of living in the city that never sleeps, New York City. Like all good kids he watched a lot of TV and was inspired by Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek who said, “Damn it Jim I’m just a country doctor.” He was the sole ship doctor on board the USS Enterprise who took care of the whole crew and also beings encountered on their voyage into “space, the final frontier.” So another dream was born: the pursuit of a career in medicine, aspiring to be a “country doctor” dedicated to helping the young and the old. He began this journey at Albany Medical College in upstate New York, far far from home. During his studies, he was deeply moved by the pervasive suffering in people caused by chronic pain, which led him to choose interventional pain medicine as his specialty.

He began his training first as an intern at Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, a Columbia University affiliate, then as a resident in anesthesiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, and finally as a fellow in interventional pain medicine at Harvard Medical School Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston.

Following his extensive training and becoming double boarded in anesthesiology and pain medicine, he was invited to join Valley Anesthesiology and Pain Consultants in Arizona as Chief of the Pain Division. After successfully building up the pain division, he became the Director of Education and Emerging Technologies, where he actively engaged in clinical research, teaching, and implementing novel therapies to treat chronic pain, all while maintaining his clinical practice.

An opportunity then arose to explore another new “frontier,” to become a “country doctor” on Kauai, leading him to take over a pain practice as the island’s “sole” board-certified interventional pain physician. His mission was to bring state-of-the-art care to the island, allowing patients who previously had to travel to the mainland to receive treatments closer to home.

More recently, Dr. Choi collaborated with two minimally invasive spine surgeons forging a partnership with the vision of bringing the continuum of spine care for the islands by offering their expertise and training, with the latest technologies under the umbrella of Excel Neurosurgery and Spine.

Dr. Choi has special interests in minimally invasive pain therapies and orthobiologics for the spine, major joints and connective tissues, focusing on facilitating the body’s natural healing and repair mechanisms. “To boldly go where” there is pain and suffering to bring about comfort, healing, and restoration.

In his spare time, Dr. Choi enjoys walks at the beach with his wife, playing the djembe and breaking boards with his bare hands.