Dr. Ajay Manhapra is the Section Chief, Pain Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Services, Hampton VA Medical Center

He graduated from the Government Medical College, Thrissur, India and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Michigan. Sfter working several years as a hospitalist and internist, he made a mid-career switch to addiction medicine. He trained at Department of Psychiatry at Yale Medical School/West Haven VA Medical Center as VA special fellowship in Addiction Treatment. For the past decade, he has been developing an interdisciplinary clinic for helping Veterans with complex chronic pain syndromes a functional life.

• Dr. Manhapra is a nationally recognized expert in complex chronic pain care. He pioneered the concept of complex persistent opioid dependence and the use of buprenorphine in failed opioid therapy and tapers. More recently, he put forth the Recovery Model that conceptualized chronic pain as an incomplete recovery state due to biopsychosocial impediments and its treatment as efforts to advance functional status and not repetitive pain management.  

His scholarly and clinical work are focused on the intersection between chronic pain, multimorbidity and recovery.