Dr. David DiSanto has practiced medicine in Andalusia before, and he is excited to be back in the community.

DiSanto worked with Gulf Coast Pain Management when it was located in Andalusia. He is now with Clearway Pain Solutions Institute, which held a ribbon cutting this past week.

“We felt that we were unable to provide service to the extent that we thought was necessary,” DiSanto said of the previous practice. “So when I came on board with Clearway, the additional manpower enabled us to expand our presence.”

This is the first expansion project that is being coordinated under DiSanto.

“I came on with Clearway in September of 2018 as their cooperate medical officer,” DiSanto said. “We have several offices located in Ft. Walton, Pace, Brewton, Atmore, Navarre and our home office is in Pensacola.”

DiSanto opened the first pain management clinic for the Navy in 1999.

“When I was going through my anesthesiology residency, my focus was on pain management,” DiSanto said. “I came to the panhandle of Florida in 1999 and opened the Navy’s first pain management clinic at the Naval Hospital in Pensacola. Upon separation from the Navy, I focused on anesthesia and worked as an anesthesiologist up until 2016 when I decided to obtain my board certification in pain management and go back into that field of medicine.”

Since DiSanto has a house in East Brewton, he knows how the people are in the area and is excited to come work here.

“I love this area,” DiSanto said. “We wanted to provide a service that we felt was lacking in this region.”

Right now, DiSanto only works two days a week in Andalusia, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but he plans to extend those days once more help comes along.

“There are a lot of patients in Andalusia that are unable to function or have a quality of life that they want,” DiSanto said. “So we are going to help them with that. We anticipate the number of days a week that we see patients and also adding another physician. When I come, I come with a nurse practitioner who helps me.”

DiSanto said that Clearway provides head to toe pain management.

“Any type of pain that the patient has, we can help them with,” DiSanto said. “We also provide medication management, chiropractic services, physical therapy, massage therapy and regenerative medicine, along with lab testing, durable medical equipment and pharmacy services. We also specialize in helping patients recover from workplace and auto accident injuries.”

He said that he is very excited to work with the administration at Andalusia Health.

“They have been extremely welcoming,” DiSanto said. “I also had the pleasure of meeting with the Chamber of Commerce and I am looking forward to engaging in community activities and kind of getting out there and meeting these people. I am also really excited about the feedback that we have gotten so far not only from the patients, but from the referring providers. It seems that our services are really appreciated and we are getting a lot of positive feedback. That just makes us want to continue expanding our presence in the area.”

DiSanto said that the best part of his job is seeing a patient come back and tell him that they are able to do things that they weren’t able to do before.

“If they come back and say that their quality of life and functional status has improved, by far that is the single biggest factor that leads to my personal job satisfaction,” DiSanto said.

DiSanto sees patients every Wednesday and Thursday from 8 a.m., until 5 p.m., and they are located at 135 Medical Park Drive, Suite 23, in Andalusia.

DiSanto earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y. He went to medical school at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry from 1991 to 1995. He did his internship at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Ga., from 1995 until 1996. He did his residency at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Mary., from 1996 to 1999, and was chief resident at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.