St Vincents Private Hospitals

Biography

Dr Michelle O’Brien is a Specialist Pain Medicine Physician and President of the Neuromodulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, with a particular interest in acute and chronic interventional pain management.

Dr Michelle O’Brien grew up and attended public schools in regional Queensland (Australia). Not one to ever let things hold her back and against her father’s wishes, Dr. O’Brien went on to study medicine at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, graduating in 1993.

Dr. O’Brien then trained in the specialty of anaesthesia at a number of major hospitals in Brisbane and regional Southeast Queensland, and went on to work as a consultant anaesthetist (anaesthesiologist) publicly at The Prince Charles Hospital and also in private practice.

From 2011 Dr. O’Brien lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for three years where she became further interested in pain, returning to undertake formal specialist training with the Faculty of Pain Medicine at the prestigious Professor Tess Cramond Multidisciplinary Pain Centre at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and then St. Vincent’s Private Hospital, Brisbane.

Dr O’Brien has worked in the private sector of pain medicine since 2017, and in July 2020 started her own practice Specialists in Pain.

Dr. O’Brien works exclusively in pain and has a firm commitment to the multidisciplinary approach to pain management - practicing “slow medicine” - taking time to really listen to and connect with patients.

Dr. O’Brien is on the regional committee for Faculty of Pain Medicine and has a keen and ongoing passion for neuromodulation, including Spinal Cord Stimulation and at the end of 2023 was appointed president of Neuromodulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.