Anthony H. Guarino, MD

Biography

A Career Built on Precision, Integrity & Clinical Depth

Dr. Anthony H. Guarino is a board-certified pain management specialist with over 25 years of clinical experience spanning academic medicine and private practice. Yale and University of Maryland educated and Johns Hopkins trained, his career encompasses academic medical leadership, tens of thousands of patient encounters, a distinguished medical-legal consulting practice, and a sustained commitment to patient and physician education through writing and speaking.

Dr. Guarino's academic foundation is unusually broad. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, followed by a Master of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School - a background that informs his empathetic approach to patients navigating chronic, often life-altering pain. He earned his medical degree at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, completed an internship in internal medicine at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, and then pursued a pain management fellowship at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital (1993–1997).

His training at Johns Hopkins was notably broad, encompassing interventional procedures, the surgical approach through neurosurgery, and the psychological approach through psychiatry - giving Dr. Guarino a genuinely multidisciplinary foundation that has shaped his clinical practice ever since.

In February 1998, Dr. Guarino was recruited to direct the Pain Management Services for Washington University at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri - a position he held for over two decades. During that time he treated tens of thousands of patients, taught residents and fellows at Washington University School of Medicine, served on the Medical Executive Committee, Quality Assurance Committee (18 years), Credentialing Committee, and Pharmacology & Therapeutics Committee, and established himself as one of the region's most respected pain management specialists.

Since 2001, Dr. Guarino has maintained a parallel medical-legal consulting practice, working with plaintiff and defense attorneys across the country on cases involving pain management and interventional spine care. He has completed more than 50 expert depositions, testified in approximately 20 federal and state court proceedings, and is qualified to testify in federal court. He does not accept contingency-based compensation and renders opinions that are independent of the retaining party.

Following his two decades in academic medicine, Dr. Guarino has spent the past seven years in private practice - an experience that complements his academic background and gives him practical insight into both the institutional and independent dimensions of pain medicine.

Dr. Guarino currently serves as Director of Interventional Pain Management at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System in Effingham, Illinois, where he continues to focus on evaluating and treating the whole person - not simply the area of pain.

"I assist both plaintiff and defense attorneys in evaluating whether a breach in the standard of care or malpractice has occurred in cases involving pain management services. My expertise provides clarity and professional insight into these complex legal matters."

- Anthony H. Guarino, MD