Brenda Lau

Dr. Brenda Lau is a Pain Specialist and Anesthesiologist practicing in Vancouver and Surrey, BC with over 20 years experience in both.  She is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australia & New Zealand College of Anaesthetists after completing a two year Pain Medicine fellowship and Master of Medicine degree in Sydney, Australia subspecializing in interventional pain management and multi-disciplinary team care.
In 2013, she co-founded Changepain Medical & Allied Health Clinic, a Vancouver based pain centre that provides multi-disciplinary pain care for myofascial, spine, neuropathic, complex regional pain syndrome, headache, pelvic, visceral, post-surgical, post-trauma, chronic diseases, and post-cancer.  This is now a UBC fellowship training site with capacity for up to 6 fellows.  The clinic has 70 staff and clinicians.  It is recognized as one of Chronic Pain Centres of Excellence by  Veterans Affairs of Canada.   Brenda is passionate about resolving chronic pain through therapies supporting prevention, pre-habilitation and early recovery after injury.  She is a certified hypnotherapist and integrates this in her full interventional pain practice at Changepain and anesthesiology practice at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
She has led numerous national, provincial and hospital based initiatives to improve understanding of pain, improve pain treatments, and improve pain care training.
After her 3 year pain fellowship and masters degree, she restarted her anesthesiology and pain practice in 2008 at Surrey Memorial Hospital and led the development of the multidisciplinary pain clinic at Surrey’s Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre as its first Medical Director. In 2011, she became the first chair of the Fraser Health Authority region wide pain services division supporting the development of various acute and chronic pain services across 10 FHA hospital sites..
Brenda was a founder and board member of, and continues to contribute to, the Pain BC Society that formed in 2008.  She has also been involved in several province-wide services including the Providence Health Care RACE Pain hotline, co-chaired the Pain Practice Support Program, helped create the BC Women’s Hospital Chronic Pelvic Pain program and was the medical lead on regional pain initiatives in Northern Health Authority and Fraser Health Authority.
To improve training standards and opportunities for physicians, since 2008 she has been working with the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada as one of the founding members of the sub-specialty of Pain Medicine which was approved in 2013. In 2015, Brenda became the first Program Director of the newest UBC residency program of Pain Medicine.