Interventional pain specialist Connor Richardson, MD, spent his youth playing many kinds of sports. His older sister is an athletic trainer, and the idea of helping to keep athletes healthy appealed to him. When he visited the sports team his sister worked for and talked with the team physician about his job; it inspired him. He decided to pursue a career in medicine to work with athletes.

Dr. Connor Richardson’s background

In medical school, he became fascinated with human biology, the nuts and bolts of how the body works. He devoted his residency training to anesthesiology, then pursued additional fellowship training after residency in interventional pain medicine. Today, Dr. Richardson is a nonoperative spine specialist focused on pain management that enables people to continue to be active.

After graduating summa cum laude from Saint John’s University with a bachelor’s degree in biology, Dr. Richardson earned his medical degree with a research distinction from the University of Iowa’s Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. He completed residency training in anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a fellowship in interventional pain medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Dr. Connor Richardson’s practice philosophy

For Dr. Richardson, maximizing a person’s function does not necessarily mean jumping right to a daily medication or a procedure. “The best way to get people back to doing more of the things they want to do is to start on the conservative side,” Dr. Richardson said.

Outside the office, Dr. Richardson loves to be out and about doing as much as he can. His hobbies include playing golf, kayaking on a lake, and traveling.