Pain clinics vary enormously. A physiatrist-led clinic is structurally biased toward restoring function — not just masking pain or defaulting to surgery referrals. Both of Mountain View Pain Center's lead physicians, Dr. Shaun Gabriel and Dr. Matthew Gray, are physiatrists: PM&R residencies followed by interventional pain fellowships, treating patients across our Colorado and Arizona clinics.
A physiatrist (fizz-EYE-uh-trist) is a medical doctor who specializes in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). Where a surgeon asks "what can I remove or repair," a physiatrist asks "how do I restore this person's function without surgery." They complete medical school, a four-year PM&R residency, and often fellowship training in a subspecialty like interventional pain medicine.
The names confuse everyone. A physiatrist is a physician — diagnoses conditions, orders imaging, performs procedures (injections, ablations), prescribes medication, and quarterbacks the treatment plan. A physical therapist delivers the hands-on rehabilitation program. They work together: the physiatrist diagnoses and opens the door (often with a procedure that reduces pain), the PT walks you through it. That partnership is the core of our care model.
Back and neck pain, sciatica, herniated discs, joint pain and arthritis, sports and work injuries, nerve pain, and post-injury loss of function. Physiatrists trained in interventional pain medicine also perform epidural steroid injections, nerve blocks, and radiofrequency ablation.
Every clinic below has Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture and Pain Management on one chart, so care can move between them without a new referral.
Downtown out through the north, west, south and east suburbs.
Academy, Interquest and Tenderfoot cover the north, central and south of the city.
Harmony in Fort Collins and our Greeley clinic serve Larimer and Weld counties.
Across the Valley, from the West Valley through Phoenix to the East Valley.
They treat function, not just the finding. An imaging report will list everything that looks abnormal in a spine, and by middle age most spines have several. A physiatrist’s job is to work out which of those findings explains your symptoms — and, just as often, which ones do not. That distinction is the difference between a treatment aimed at your pain and a treatment aimed at a picture.
They are trained across the whole non-surgical toolkit. Physiatrists prescribe and direct rehabilitation, manage medication, and perform interventional procedures. That breadth means the recommendation is not shaped by which single tool the specialist happens to hold.
They sit between disciplines. A physiatrist is often the person who coordinates care that involves Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and interventional procedures at once — deciding the order, and changing it when the response says to.
Compared with a neurologist. A neurologist specializes in diseases of the nervous system. A physiatrist focuses on the functional consequences — the weakness, the nerve pain, the loss of movement — and on treating them. The two often work together where a nerve problem is complex.
Compared with your primary care doctor. Your primary care doctor manages your health broadly and is often the right first call. A physiatrist is the specialist they send you to when a musculoskeletal problem needs more focused assessment than a general appointment allows.
Consider a physiatrist if any of these apply:
You do not need to have exhausted everything else first. A physiatrist is often most useful early, when the diagnosis is still open, rather than as a last resort.
A history, and a longer one than you may be used to — how the problem started, what it stops you doing, what has already been tried and what happened.
Then a physical examination: strength, sensation, reflexes, joint movement and the specific tests that separate one cause from another.
Then a review of any imaging you already have, read against your examination rather than on its own.
You should leave with an explanation of what is most likely going on and a plan with an order to it — what to start with, what to expect, and what the next step is if the first does not work. If imaging or nerve testing would change that plan, it is ordered. If it would not, it is not.
Care generally moves up a ladder, and it starts at the bottom.
Chiropractic and Physical Therapy first for most people — restoring movement to the joints that have stopped moving, then rebuilding the strength and control that keep them moving. Acupuncture alongside, where muscle tension and nerve irritation are a large part of the picture.
Interventional procedures when the response calls for it. Image-guided injections — epidural steroid injections, facet and medial branch blocks, radiofrequency ablation, joint injections — are aimed at one specific structure. They reduce pain, and because they are targeted, a good response also tells you something useful about where the pain was coming from. At Mountain View Pain Center these are performed in our own procedure clinics or at our surgery center in Denver.
A surgical opinion when the picture genuinely calls for one. Saying so is part of the job.
Yes — an MD or DO with residency training, board certification, and prescribing/procedural privileges.
Most of our patients don't; some insurance plans require it — call and we'll check.
Unless something clearly needs surgery (major trauma, progressive weakness), starting non-surgical costs you nothing: most musculoskeletal pain resolves without an operation, and a physiatrist will tell you honestly when it won't.
The specialty exists to treat these problems without surgery. A physiatrist recommends a surgical opinion when the examination and imaging genuinely point that way, which for most spine and joint pain they do not.
Yes. Image-guided injections are a core part of the specialty, used both to treat pain and to help confirm its source.
Your insurance card, a list of current medications, and any imaging or prior treatment records you have. If you do not have records available, that is fine — the examination is the larger part of the visit.
Our physiatrists see patients at Mountain View Pain Center clinics in Colorado and Arizona — see the full clinic map, Colorado or Arizona.
