The team
Who you will see.
A small practice. The physician who makes the diagnosis is the one who performs the procedure and sees you back.
In short
Two clinicians see patients at NJ Pain & Spine. Dr. Ednan Sheikh, MD, is board certified in anesthesiology and pain management and performs every procedure and nerve study. Susan Karunphand, NP, handles evaluations, follow-up visits and the day to day management of a treatment plan.
Physician
Dr. Ednan Sheikh
Founder and Interventional Pain Physician. Director of Pain Services, Hudson Regional Hospital.
Dr. Ednan Sheikh is board certified in both Anesthesiology and Pain Management by the American Board of Anesthesiology. He trained in anesthesiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and completed his pain fellowship at the Tri-Institute of Pain in New York City, a program run jointly by NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, the Hospital for Special Surgery, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He has practiced interventional pain medicine for more than fifteen years and has treated over ten thousand patients.
He is known as The Nerve Doc because of his work in electrodiagnostic medicine. EMG and nerve conduction studies show which nerve is injured, how badly, and whether the damage is recent or old. That answer changes the treatment plan. Dr. Sheikh performs and reads these studies himself and goes over the results with the patient the same day, rather than sending the test out and waiting a week for a report written by someone who never examined the patient.
He founded NJ Pain & Spine in 2011 and sees patients in Clifton on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, in Jersey City on Wednesdays, and in Edison on Thursdays. He served as Director of Pain Services at Jersey City Medical Center from 2013 to 2017 and has held the same role at Hudson Regional Hospital since 2018. His approach starts with a diagnosis. Injections, radiofrequency ablation, nerve blocks and the rest of the interventional toolkit are only useful once you know what is generating the pain.
Before medicine he earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Lehigh University with high honors, where he wrestled at the Division I level and was elected to Tau Beta Pi and Omicron Delta Kappa. He was a Pennsylvania state champion and All-American wrestler at The Hill School. He published research on ventilator autotriggering caused by cardiogenic oscillations in Anesthesia & Analgesia in 2009, and appeared on The Dr. Oz Show in February 2013.
Education
Certification and licensure
Memberships
Languages spoken: English, Urdu
Nurse practitioner
Susan Karunphand
Nurse Practitioner
Susan Karunphand is a nurse practitioner at NJ Pain & Spine. She sees patients for evaluations, follow-up visits, medication review and the day to day management of a treatment plan between procedures. If you have a question about a prescription, a symptom that changed, or a form your employer needs, she is usually the person who handles it.
She came to pain medicine through rehabilitation nursing, where she worked as a registered nurse helping patients recover function after injury and surgery. That work shapes how she approaches a visit. The goal of treatment is not a number on a pain scale, it is getting back to work, sleeping through the night, and moving without guarding.
She has also worked as a nurse manager on the insurance side of healthcare, leading a clinical team and keeping care within protocol. That experience is useful in a practice where a large share of patients arrive through workers' compensation and auto carriers, because she understands what documentation a carrier actually needs and how to get an authorization moving.
Education
Certification and licensure
Book with the person who will treat you.
Three New Jersey offices, most insurance accepted, and a real opening on the calendar.