Dr. Amanda Greene provides a menu of interventional techniques to help patients with chronic pain
Amanda Greene enjoys a good challenge.
The latest addition to NeuroSpine Center of Wisconsin’s non-surgical team, Greene is double board-certified in anesthesia and pain medicine.
Greene isn’t formal about her title.
“I’m a pain management doctor,” she said.
Trained in the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of all different types of pain, Greene sees a lot of patients with low back, hip, leg, shoulder or arm pain. With specialized training in chronic pain, Greene uses a comprehensive, whole-body approach that engages multiple modalities and treatment protocols.
“Medications, injections, physical therapy, chiropractic care, massage, acupuncture, pain psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, guided meditation can work wonderfully together,” Greene said.
Greene’s extensive training includes medication management, optimizing the ways a patient uses over-the-counter analgesics, topicals or prescription medications.
She has found her home at NeuroSpine, the Appleton, Wis.-based brain and spine care facility that combines the expertise of neurosurgery and orthopedic spine surgery with physical medicine and physical therapy. The integrated care delivery model is paramount to NeuroSpine’s success and recognition as a regional destination for neurospine care.
That level of collegiality and collaboration, Greene said, is key to providing the highest possible quality of life for patients, as physicians work and learn together as a unified team.
“I can use the expertise of my colleagues to help my patients and vice versa,” Greene said. “I do a lot of interventional techniques for difficult to manage ailments — like complex regional pain syndrome — so they’ve been able to send me patients or ask advice on different procedural techniques.”
Born in Iowa and raised in Wisconsin (with family loyalties torn between Hawkeyes and Badgers), Greene was pre-med, earning her biology degree at UW-Milwaukee and medical degree at Medical College of Wisconsin.
In her last year of medical school at the Milwaukee County VA, Greene found her first niche after doing a rotation in anesthesia. She would soon finish school — and get married — and begin her search for places to do her anesthesia residency. She matched at Iowa and reconnected with family there. Following another rotation, Greene identified her second specialty, pain medicine, and would spend another year in training.
Greene’s last few years have been busy: completion of her fellowship, the birth of her first child, delivering telemedicine during a global pandemic, moving to Northeast Wisconsin for her new job at NeuroSpine and the completion of her boards for both anesthesia and chronic pain.
“A challenging time, and very rewarding at every level,” she said.
With the family settling in, and the pace of life now is a little less frenetic if no less busy. She and her husband Zach are both into outdoor sports and especially love to hike with their young son, already an independent young man who prefers walking precarious trails to being pushed or pulled in any kind of conveyance.
“Oh, it’s a fun challenge,” Greene said.
The pace of life has allowed for reflection too, and the mention of her son reminds Greene of her recent medical mission trip to Colombia. For 16 days she worked side-by-side with a team of medical professionals performing reconstructive procedures in some of the most underserved areas in Latin America.
She found out she was pregnant the night before she left for Colombia.
Greene’s team needed to use the minimum amount of anesthesia gases to keep their pregnant colleague safe while providing excellent care to their patients.
“Going there and doing pediatric anesthesia for 12 hours a day was one of the most incredible experiences of my life,” said Greene.
Accepting challenges seems to be part of Greene’s genetic makeup. She embraces the opportunity to help every one of her patients to get back to the life they want to lead.
“I treat complex chronic pain patients, people who have been struggling for a long time and need relief. These are the kinds of patients that I like to see. There are so many interventional techniques available to patients – spinal cord stimulation is one – and we’re bringing these into the practice to provide the very best personalized treatments.”
