About DVCIPM

As a result of current conflicts, we have witnessed the greatness of America through the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform.

Established in 2003, the Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management (DVCIPM) seeks to improve the management of pain in military and civilian medicine. Through clinical research efforts, the center has become a model for effective integration of acute and chronic pain medicine.

DVCIPM is a collaborative research partnership among Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md; the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and Philadelphia Research and Education Foundation, Philadelphia; and the Conemaugh Health System, Johnstown, Pa.

Director Profile

Colonel Chester "Trip" Buckenmaier, III

COL Chester “Trip” Buckenmaier is the current Program Director for the Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management (DVCIPM). In addition, he is President of the DVCIPM Board of Directors, a multidisciplinary, tri-service pain consultant group, and the Uniformed Services Society of Anesthesiologists (USSA). He is Program Director of the National Capital Consortium’s Acute Pain Medicine and Regional Anesthesia Fellowship Program, an Assistant Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and a Diplomat with the American Board of Anesthesiology.

He attended Catawba College on a Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship, graduating with a degree in biology. He then attended East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., receiving a Master of Science in biology. He graduated from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., and completed his anesthesia residency at Walter Reed. In addition, he completed a one-year fellowship in regional anesthesia at Duke University, resulting in the creation of the only regional anesthesia fellowship in the Army at Walter Reed.

In September 2003, he deployed to the 21st Combat Support Hospital in Balad, Iraq, and demonstrated that the use of advanced regional anesthesia can be accomplished in the battlefield. He performed the first successful application of continuous peripheral nerve block for pain management in theater on Specialist Brian Wilhelm. COL Buckenmaier deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, establishing the first battlefield Acute Pain Service.

In collaboration with The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. (HJF) and Telemedicine and the Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), he established the Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management (DVCIPM).