Melissa Seelbach, MD, PhD

As a doctor, she is primarily motivated by her patients, many of who are significantly debilitated by their chronic pain condition. She enjoys being their doctor in these circumstances. It is both challenging and rewarding at the same time. She is also motivated by widespread recognition of the public burden of chronic pain, which has stimulated rapid innovation and informational technology in pain medicine. Outside of the office, she likes traveling, the outdoors, and spending time with family. She is proud and excited to serve the Grand Forks community.

Philosophy of Medicine

"I chose a career in pain medicine early in my anesthesiology residency after medical school. I chose to focus on interventional approaches to pain because I saw that traditional methods of treating pain (opioid narcotics) were not effective for our chronic pain patients. Chronic pain is prevalent in our communities, and activity-limiting low back pain is the number one cause of disability globally. I aspired to preserve function, reduce pain, and improve quality of life by minimally invasive injection interventions, cutting-edge neuromodulation, and regenerative medicine therapies. Pain management gives me the opportunity to approach each patient with a personalized treatment plan using clinically proven therapies for their unique pain condition as part of a multimodal comprehensive approach to pain management."