Welcome to the CSU Center for Comparative and Integrative Pain Medicine! Our overarching goal is to provide animals relief from pain and to optimize their quality of life. We do this through clinical service, humane research, advanced educational programs, and a dedication to elevating awareness of the imperative to recognize and effectively address pain and discomfort in animals.
Our pain medicine doctors draw from natural healing approaches such as acupuncture, gentle manual therapy, nutritional supplements, and more, along with conventional drug-based pain medicine treatments, to meld the best of both worlds for the benefit of our patients.
To learn more about our program, please contact the Center Director, Dr. Narda Robinson, at Narda.Robinson@colostate.edu, or read more about our visions and direction on this website.
To make a pain medicine appointment with either Dr. Bonnie Wright or Dr. Robinson for evaluation of your animal companion, contact the Colorado State University Veterinary Medical Center at 970-221-4535.
We at the Center for Comparative and Integrative Pain Medicine seek to:
Dr. Robinson heads the pain center and natural healing service at CSU. Her research centers on the
comparative neuroanatomy of acupuncture, the development of interactive, virtual reality acupuncture teaching tools, and natural healing methods such as laser, acupuncture, and herbs. She has recently completed two studies on the value of Traditional Chinese Medical diagnostic approaches in dogs, specifically on the ancient assessment tool of tongue diagnosis. They will be published in upcoming issues of the American Journal of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Robinson has been pursuing education in natural healing and non-pharmacologic methods of pain control since the mid-1980's, beginning with osteopathic medical school. She earned her Doctor of Osteopathy degree from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1988. Following a rotating internship at Grandview Osteopathic Hospital, she completed the UCLA Medical Acupuncture for Physicians course in 1990. She continued learning Chinese Medicine with courses on acupuncture and Chinese herbs, utilizing both modalities for her human patients in Boulder, CO.
While living in Boulder, Dr. Robinson was immersed in the alternative healing community and was exposed to a multitude of additional healing modalities, including Reiki, western and Chinese herbal practice, and various types of spiritual healing practices. At this time, she also began to realize that although courses and practices in natural healing were plentiful, the evidential basis and scientific explanations for a large percentage of these techniques were missing. She wondered why more people weren't asking questions about the techniques they were teaching and providing for their patients.
Over time, animal caregivers and wildlife rehabilitators made increasingly more frequent requests for Dr. Robinson to extend her natural healing techniques to animals. In response, Dr. Robinson sought further education in animal-related courses, such as animal homeopathy, so that she could assess the strength of homeopathy as a treatment option for non-humans, and especially for rescued wildlife, given its popularity among wildlife rehabilitation groups. Dr. Robinson soon realized that in order to treat animals appropriately, she herself needed to earn a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine.
Following graduation from the CSU College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 1997, she instituted the complementary and alternative medicine program at CSU and founded the Medical Acupuncture for Veterinarians program in 1998. In order to diversify the complementary medical education options at CSU, she hosted a course in small animal herbal medicine in 1999 and one for large and small animals in 2002. She enrolled in a Traditional Chinese Medicine course for animals, but found that memorizing long lists of herbs in Chinese formulas and matching them to ancient metaphoric indications such as "Dispels Fire" left her looking for more substantial, scientific explanations of herbal mechanisms, though none were forthcoming.
By now, the same questions began to creep up, as they did with human medicine: "How do we know which herbs are safe for animals?" "Which herbs interact dangerously with medications, or cause problems in animals with kidney failure or liver compromise?" "Who is overseeing the manufacture of these products so that we can tell that what is in the bottle is the same as that stated on the label?"
These questions persist to this day.
Based on her extensive, multidisclipinary and personal exposure to the spectrum of integrative medical techniques, Dr. Robinson has developed a critical approach to complementary and alternative medicine, otherwise known as natural healing or integrative medicine. For over a decade, she has taught an annual elective course on this topic to professional veterinary medical students, VM720. With this course, Dr. Robinson works to instill a critical mindset in her students, giving them sufficient exposure to a wide range of natural healing modalities so that they can astutely guide their veterinary clientele, armed with facts instead of fiction, and with insights about what to look for in continuing education programs, urging them to select courses with evidence-based, scientific content. The need for natural healing courses built on scientific principles and supported by research is dire in both human and veterinary integrative medicine. To meet this need, Dr. Robinson has created Medical Massage for Animals in 2008. The scientific acupuncture course, Medical Acupuncture for Veterinarians, reached its tenth year in 2008 as the only acupuncture course in the United States associated with a veterinary college.
Dr. Wright serves as the Chairperson of the Board of Directors, of the International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management. She received her Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from CSU-CVMBS in 1995; she completed her post-doctorate work in anesthesia at CSU in 1996, and her anesthesia and critical care residency at UC Davis in 2000. She has been a faculty member at Ross University on St. Kitts, West Indies, from 2000-2001, and served as a visiting professor until 2006. From 2001 to 2008, Dr. Wright has worked as an assistant professor in anesthesiology at CSU. Her job expanded in 2007 to include development of the Integrative Pain Medicine Service with Dr. Robinson; together, they are actively expaning the breadth and depth of the pain medicine offerings at CSU.
Dr. Wright became credentialed in medical acupuncture in 2007 after attending the Medical Acupuncture for Veterinarians program. She has continued her work as an emergency doctor at the Fort Collins Veterinary Emergency Hospital since 2003. Her professional interests include integrative approaches to acute and chronic pain, development of interventional regional techniques for cancer pain, teaching, and clinical research.
The advisory team guiding the Center for Comparative and Integrative Pain Medicinel includes Drs. Peter Hellyer, Ray Whalen, Dean Hendrickson, and Jamie Gaynor
