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Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine

Stuart W. Hough, MD

Pain Management Specialists

Board certified Accepting new patients Washingtonian Top Doctor (pain management), multiple yearsBethesda Magazine Top DoctorConsumers' Checkbook top-rated pain physician

Dr. Stuart W. Hough is an interventional pain physician at Pain Management Specialists in Rockville, and chairman of the pain management division at Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center. He is certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in both anesthesiology and pain management.

Background and training

Dr. Hough earned his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He completed an internal medicine internship at NYU Winthrop Hospital, then both his anesthesiology residency and his pain management fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He served three years in the United States Air Force afterward, directing the interventional pain management clinic at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center in San Antonio.

Why patients choose Dr. Hough

Two credentials do most of the work here. The dual certification in anesthesiology and pain management means his procedural training and his chronic-pain training are both formally examined rather than assumed. The division chairmanship at Shady Grove means the hospital’s pain program answers to him — useful context if your care is likely to involve inpatient or surgical coordination. He has also been named repeatedly to the Washingtonian and Bethesda Magazine Top Doctor lists by his peers, and rated a top pain doctor by patients in Consumers’ Checkbook.

He teaches medical students regularly and holds a faculty appointment at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Practice focus

Pain from spinal conditions, nerve injury, surgery, and cancer, treated with interventional procedures alongside longer-term management.

Languages and access

Dr. Hough speaks English and sees patients at the Shady Grove Road office in Rockville, with a second practice location in Frederick.

Profile last fact-checked August 18, 2026. Information reflects publicly available sources and may change. Confirm details directly with the practice before booking.

How Dr. Hough compares

Context from the 139 providers we track across Bethesda and Montgomery County.

  • The only provider we list offering post-surgical and nerve injury pain

    1 of the 130 providers who list their focus areas name post-surgical and nerve injury pain.

  • The only University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry graduate we list

    1 of the 107 doctors whose medical school we record studied at University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

  • 1 of 2 in Rockville

    We list 2 anesthesiology & pain medicine providers serving Rockville.

  • 1 of 2 we list at Pain Management Specialists

    We cover 2 providers at Pain Management Specialists.

Medical school: University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry — Rochester, NY, United States.

Figures describe the 139 providers currently in the MyBethesdaDoctor registry as of August 2026 — a curated directory, not a census of every doctor in Montgomery County. How we build this list.

Where Dr. Hough sits by experience

Dr. Hough finished medical school in 1993, 33 years ago. Of the 135 providers in our registry whose graduation year we could verify, 39 finished earlier, 91 finished later, and 4 finished the same year.

Each column counts the providers we list who finished professional school in that five-year band — medical school for a physician, dental school for a dentist, the PA or nurse practitioner program for a PA-C or DNP. Registry median: 1999.

Among the 110 physicians we list, 36 finished medical school earlier — the median for that group is 1998.

All 12 bands
GraduatedProviders
1965–19691
1970–19742
1975–19794
1980–198413
1985–198912
1990–1994 — Dr. Hough14
1995–199927
2000–200420
2005–200919
2010–201417
2015–20194
2020–20242

Figures describe the 139 providers currently in the MyBethesdaDoctor registry as of August 2026 — a curated directory, not a census of every doctor in Montgomery County. Based on the 135 of 139 profiles with a graduation year we could verify against a primary source; the remaining 4 are left out rather than estimated. How we build this list.

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