Dr. May C. Ong

Dr. May C. Ong received her MD degree from the University of Toronto in 1978. She then took three years of training in Internal Medicine plus one and a half years training in Anaesthesia. Dr. Ong subsequently carried out two years of postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of British Columbia. Since 1984, Dr. Ong has been a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Since 1986, Dr. Ong has been in full-time practice specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic pain. In 1986 she founded the Complex Pain Centre (now called the Centralized Pain Program) in the Department of Medicine at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.

Dr. Ong is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia where she trains neurology residents, family practice physicians and medical students in mechanism-based diagnosis and pain management.

Dr. Ong is also a clinician-scientist whose research investigates the management of chronic pain. Her research includes the treatment of chronic headache and the efficacy of multi-day, IV Ketamine infusion in patients with refractory neuropathic pain.

In recognition of Dr. Ong’s clinical mastery and research contributions, in 2023 Providence Health Care appointed her its first Chair in the Neurobiology and Neuropharmacology of Pain.