The Pain Management Clinic (PMC) is an interdisciplinary treatment team including psychologists, physiatrists, psychiatrists, physical therapists, and medical staff.  Our team is located within the outpatient Rehabilitation and Medical Specialties Departments, and we strive to serve our county’s underserved chronic pain patients.   

The goal of the PMC fellowship is to provide comprehensive, individualized training while furthering the field of pain psychology and mind-body medical conditions at large.  We maintain an environment dedicated to advancing multicultural understanding and providing treatment in culturally competent ways.   

The PMC uses a scholar-practitioner model of training with implementation of evidenced-based care and treatment. 

Pain Clinic Training History

San Mateo County Health has historically provided training to various types of mental health trainees including psychiatry residents, neuropsychology students, MFT interns, social work interns and graduate-level psychology trainees since the opening of outpatient community mental health in the 1970’s and 80’s.   

The Pain Management Clinic (PMC) at San Mateo Medical Center began training psychology interns in the late 2,000. PMC expanded it’s training to post-doctoral fellows in 2015.  PMC offers a unique and extensive training experience as fellows work alongside an interdisciplinary team. Currently, we only offer a APPIC member postdoctoral fellowship. 

Training Program Mission and Values

The mission of the PMC fellowship is to provide comprehensive, individualized training while furthering the field of pain psychology. We maintain an environment dedicated to advancing multicultural understanding and providing treatment in culturally competent ways. The PMC uses a scholar-practitioner model of training with implementation of evidenced-based care and treatment.   

Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons for visit within primary care clinics.  Our team (fellow included) offers a fundamental service to our medical system.  Our fellow is an integral part of our treatment team that provides evidenced based culturally competent care through psychological assessments, group psychotherapy, individual psychotherapy, fellowship project, and participation in co-treat visits with our medical staff and our physical therapist. Interventions target psychological, behavioral, and physical symptoms of chronic pain.   

Didactics

In addition to partnering with the Integrative Behavioral Health (IBH) team, our fellow attends our weekly hour-long pain psychology didactics, which is taught by psychologists and our psychiatrist.  The didactics consists of empirically supported guidelines for treating chronic pain.  Our small groups size allows for more intensive one-on-one trainings.  Training topics include ACT for chronic pain, spinal anatomy, Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), hypnosis for chronic pain, and Professionalism and Diversity. 

Position Information

The PMC recruits annually a one-full time postdoctoral fellow to join our interdisciplinary team. Prior to entry into fellowship, the fellow must complete all professional doctoral degree requirements from an APA-accredited graduate program in clinical or counseling psychology and have their degree (Ph.D. or Psy.D.) posted prior to the start of fellowship.  The fellow must complete an APPIC-member, preferably APA-accredited, internship in clinical or counseling psychology.  Bilingual applicants are strongly urged to apply, as we have a large Spanish-speaking patient population.    

The fellow will receive a competitive salary for the training year. This position includes full benefits, including health coverage (various medical, dental, and vision plans) for the fellow and eligible family members.  In addition to 15 paid County holidays, fellows will accrue paid vacation hours at a rate of 4 hours for each bi-weekly pay period and paid sick leave at a rate of 3.7 hours for each bi-weekly pay period. Additional electable benefits include life insurance, pet insurance, and a flexible spending account. A detailed description of the packet of benefits can be found on the County of San Mateo website.  

Benefits Guide for Limited Term Employees 

The PMC fellow must meet the minimal requirements for completion of fellowship.  The fellow will have accrued a minimum of 1800 supervised hours over a 12-month period.   

Once all criteria are met, the fellow will be provided a certificate upon fulfillment of completion of fellowship requirements.  The certificate attests to the fellow’s completion of hours of supervised training and meets minimal performance standards.  Satisfactory completion of the postdoctoral training program meets postdoctoral supervised practice requirements for licensure in the state of California. 

Applications may be submitted via APPA CAS portal or by sending the application materials to the email below. The following need to be sent to the training director:  

• Curriculum Vitae 
• Letter of intent describing career goals and interests and how these fit with our program.  Please state dissertation status and anticipated date of graduation 
• Three letters of recommendation.  One letter must come from the internship training director/supervisor 

Questions and concerns can be directed to Dr. Christian Washburn, PMC training director at cwashburn@smcgov.org  

Attendings

Dr. Melissa Canter 

Dr. Melissa Canter (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist with a background in neuropsychology and health psychology. She completed her doctorate degree at Alliant International University, internship at San Mateo Medical Center, and post-doctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at University California Davis Medical Center. Dr. Canter started her career as a pain psychologist in 2013 and currently works as the Director of the Pain Management Clinic at San Mateo Medical Center, a safety-net hospital.  She was hired to develop Northern California’s sole functional restoration program in a county hospital setting. She leads an interdisciplinary team whose mission is to deescalate medications and procedures and teach patients to increase function by applying holistic modalities. Dr. Canter feels passionately about serving the county’s disenfranchised population, and it is her mission to provide state-of-the-art services and evidenced-based medicine to the patients she serves. Additionally, she is on the board of the organization American Association of Pain Psychology.  This organization is a place for clinicians and scientists to network and advocate for pain psychology as a formal specialty.  The organization also aims to provide guidelines and education regarding the practice and study of pain management in order to maximize the quality of care provided to clients.  

Dr. Bruce Eliashof 

Dr. Bruce Eliashof (he/him) is a board-certified psychiatrist with a background in health and chronic pain.  He completed his medical degree at the University of Hawaii and his psychiatry residency program at San Mateo Medical Center.  Dr. Eliashof specializes in clinical hypnosis, EMDR, and mind-body medical conditions. 

Dr. Christian Washburn 

Dr. Christian Washburn (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist.  She earned her Psy.D. in clinical psychology, with an emphasis in health psychology from Alliant International University, California School of Professional Psychology in 2012.  She completed her pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellowship with San Mateo Medical Center’s Medical Psychiatry Clinic.  Her clinical interests include treatment of trauma in chronic pain, nutrition, spirituality, cognitive processing therapy, and sensorimotor psychotherapy. She currently serves as the PMC’s training director. She directs and organizes the training program and its resources, is responsible for recruiting and selecting the fellow, monitors and evaluates the training program’s goals and activities, and maintains and documents the fellows’ records.