Ron Boeding, MD
Dr. Boeding graduated Cum Laude with a B.S. in Psychology and a Minor in Music from Colorado State University. He attended medical school at University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and graduated in 2008. Dr. Boeding is board certified in Interventional Pain Management, having completed his Fellowship in Pain Management at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Ron is originally from Iowa, and attended the University of Iowa Medical School in Iowa City, where he met his wife Enid. After Residency at UVA they moved to Minnesota in 2012 for Enid to begin her Fellowship in Forensic Pathology at Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office and then at HCMC. They live in Plymouth and both enjoy the great outdoors, time with their two boys and seeing family in Iowa.
Dr. Boeding became a medical partner at iSpine Clinics in 2020. He has a special interest in the use of spinal cord stimulation for the treatment of intractable pains ranging from neuropathy due to diseases like diabetes, to low back and sciatica or neck pain after spine surgery, and for other painful conditions like chronic regional pain syndrome from injuries causing nerve damage.
His philosophy of care is that pain is only one sign of an underlying disease. Moreover, chronic pain is a sign that the current/past treatments are not helping. The use of narcotic and non-narcotic pain medications, as well as appropriate procedural interventions should be individually considered for each patient and can be used as a means to buy time for the source of the pain to be identified, and ultimately best treated. For those times that the source of the pain is well-known and has been treated as well as possible, then the ongoing use of medications and procedures becomes an option to allow continued/preserved function.
“I first became interested in Pain Medicine when I was in residency at UVA while I was on a rotation in the pain clinic. I had the mistaken impression that the pain clinic was simply a place for patients who had no other options; patients who were taking high doses of opiate medications daily, and/or who had undergone surgery without much benefit. Luckily, the doctors and nurses I met were on the cutting edge of non-narcotic medications, as well as the use of minimally invasive procedures to treat the most complicated and intractable cases. I was so impressed at how they were able to treat problems that so many other doctors had dismissed or given up on.
Since that time, I’ve gravitated towards these minimally invasive procedures and techniques to address sources of my patient’s pain as much as possible. In my career thus far, I have seen such dramatic advances in Spinal Cord Stimulation, and in broadening use of Radiofrequency Ablation to relieve nerve and arthritis pain, respectively. Now we are able to even perform surgeries in the outpatient setting that used to require hospital stays and large incisions.
Perhaps most rewarding is how it seems that the tables have turned and we are now seeing patients before they have undergone surgery, before they have become trapped on opiates. I feel I am adding value to my patients and to my referring providers because when I refer someone to surgery, it’s because I know that every other option has been considered and exhausted.” – Ron B. Boeding MD