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Francisco M. Torres, MD

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Francisco M. Torres, MD

An interventional physiatrist specializing in diagnosing and treating patients with spine-related pain syndromes.

58 articles on KevinMD · 9 podcast episodes

floridaspineinstitute.com

About

Francisco M. Torres is an interventional physiatrist specializing in diagnosing and treating patients with spine-related pain syndromes. He is certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Board of Pain Medicine and can be reached at Florida Spine Institute and Wellness. 

Dr. Torres was born in Spain and grew up in Puerto Rico. He graduated from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. Dr. Torres performed his physical medicine and rehabilitation residency at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Juan before completing a musculoskeletal fellowship at Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans. He served three years as a clinical instructor of medicine and assistant professor at LSU before joining Florida Spine Institute in Clearwater, Florida, where he is the medical director of the Wellness Program.

Dr. Torres is an interventional physiatrist specializing in diagnosing and treating patients with spine-related pain syndromes. He is certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Board of Pain Medicine. He is a prolific writer and primarily interested in preventative medicine. He works with all of his patients to promote overall wellness.

Latest articles

Medical education

A $480 editing fee and the fairness of academic publishing

After nearly four decades in medicine, I have had more than my fair share of encounters with academic publishing, some pleasant and some less so. I spent the earlier part of my career in academic medicine and, even after moving…

After nearly four decades in medicine, I have had more than my fair share of encounters with academic publishing, some pleasant and some less so. I spent the earlier part of my career in academic medicine and, even after moving into private practice, I never quite shook the urge to write. These days I gravitate toward essays and books, but working alongside students has pulled me back into case reports …

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A $480 editing fee and the fairness of academic publishing

Physician voices

Does cash-pay medicine change the standard of care?

Not long ago, I attended a webinar on regenerative medicine. The speaker was the sort of polished, confident expert you expect at these events. During the Q&A, someone finally asked the question that always comes up: Does insurance cover any…

Not long ago, I attended a webinar on regenerative medicine. The speaker was the sort of polished, confident expert you expect at these events. During the Q&A, someone finally asked the question that always comes up: Does insurance cover any of this?

The answer was a flat no. Cash only. And not a small sum, either. A number that made even me, after decades in medicine and not easily shocked by …

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Does cash-pay medicine change the standard of care?

Conditions and diseases

Why a pain management referral feels like an accusation

I vividly recall the expression on Tim's face during his initial visit to my exam room. Rather than relief, he exhibited suspicion. After enduring years of chronic pain, Tim had been referred to me, an interventional physiatrist, and had come…

I vividly recall the expression on Tim’s face during his initial visit to my exam room. Rather than relief, he exhibited suspicion. After enduring years of chronic pain, Tim had been referred to me, an interventional physiatrist, and had come to perceive a referral to “pain management” not as an opportunity for assistance, but as a judgment. He feared I would regard him not as a patient in need, but …

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Why a pain management referral feels like an accusation

Conditions and diseases

Interpreting heart rate variability beyond wearable scores

A patient recently sat across from me, phone in hand, scrolling through months of heart rate variability (HRV) data. He wasn't asking me to interpret a lab value or an MRI. In a sense, he was asking me to interpret…

A patient recently sat across from me, phone in hand, scrolling through months of heart rate variability (HRV) data. He wasn’t asking me to interpret a lab value or an MRI. In a sense, he was asking me to interpret himself, filtered through an algorithm he strongly trusted, one that would not be contradicted by medical advice or even his own body.

He’s 58, a recreational cyclist, motivated and well-read. He …

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Interpreting heart rate variability beyond wearable scores

Drugs and prescribing

BPC-157 safety remains uncertain without human evidence

This patient had done everything right. Six months earlier, he had come into my office barely able to lift his arm above shoulder height, the result of a rotator cuff injury that had quietly worsened over a year of ignoring…

This patient had done everything right. Six months earlier, he had come into my office barely able to lift his arm above shoulder height, the result of a rotator cuff injury that had quietly worsened over a year of ignoring it. We treated it with the art of clinical approach: an image-guided intra-articular injection to calm the inflammation, followed by a disciplined course of physical therapy. He showed up for …

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BPC-157 safety remains uncertain without human evidence

Conditions and diseases

A survivor waits on testosterone after prostate cancer

My testosterone level is 177 ng/dL. I am intimately familiar with this number, having checked it myself on my own laboratory slip, just as I have reviewed countless lab results for patients throughout my 35-year medical career. But this time,…

My testosterone level is 177 ng/dL. I am intimately familiar with this number, having checked it myself on my own laboratory slip, just as I have reviewed countless lab results for patients throughout my 35-year medical career. But this time, however, the patient’s focus was on me.

One year ago, I underwent a prostatectomy for low-grade, minimally aggressive prostate cancer. The surgery was successful, and the pathology results were reassuring. My …

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A survivor waits on testosterone after prostate cancer

Conditions and diseases

A physical therapy referral needs more than a signature

One of the reasons I chose to specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) was influenced by Puerto Rico's distinctive regulations governing physical therapy. At the time I trained, a physical therapy practice could not legally operate without a physiatrist's…

One of the reasons I chose to specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) was influenced by Puerto Rico’s distinctive regulations governing physical therapy. At the time I trained, a physical therapy practice could not legally operate without a physiatrist’s license on file. Only a physiatrist could refer a patient to physical therapy, and only a physiatrist’s credentials permitted the clinic to function, as defined under Puerto Rico’s …

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A physical therapy referral needs more than a signature

Physician voices

Discipline isn’t the missing piece. Agency is.

A patient once sat across from me in my exam room, glanced at the bookshelf behind me, and said, "Doc, I just don't have your discipline." He was looking at a copy of one of my first books, Dr. T's…

A patient once sat across from me in my exam room, glanced at the bookshelf behind me, and said, “Doc, I just don’t have your discipline.” He was looking at a copy of one of my first books, Dr. T’s Drop the Fat Diet, which features a before-and-after photo on the cover. The “after” image shows a six-pack I built through years of focused effort. To him, that cover …

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Discipline isn’t the missing piece. Agency is.

Conditions and diseases

Depression after spinal cord injury hides in plain sight

During my residency, while rotating through the spinal cord unit at the VA Hospital in Puerto Rico, I cared for young veterans who, to my surprise, had, in most cases, adjusted remarkably well to a new reality: they would spend…

During my residency, while rotating through the spinal cord unit at the VA Hospital in Puerto Rico, I cared for young veterans who, to my surprise, had, in most cases, adjusted remarkably well to a new reality: they would spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair. I remember one case, in particular. I recollect this case well because the patient was the unofficial Don Juan of the unit. …

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Depression after spinal cord injury hides in plain sight

Conditions and diseases

Radiofrequency ablation and the young back pain patient

I remember my early years in interventional physiatry with a clarity that only comes from repetition. A young patient, often in their twenties or thirties, would walk in with a single, unremarkable complaint: axial low back pain, non-radiating. The exam…

I remember my early years in interventional physiatry with a clarity that only comes from repetition. A young patient, often in their twenties or thirties, would walk in with a single, unremarkable complaint: axial low back pain, non-radiating. The exam told a consistent story: pain reproduced with extension and rotation, no radicular findings, and no neurological deficits. Imaging was equally quiet: maybe a mildly bulging disc, some early facet hypertrophy, …

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Radiofrequency ablation and the young back pain patient

Physician voices

What happened when I brought faith into medicine

There is a topic that has been avoided since the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment in medical discourse. Nothing to do with diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment protocols, but about the invisible human nature that holds patients together when science…

There is a topic that has been avoided since the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment in medical discourse. Nothing to do with diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment protocols, but about the invisible human nature that holds patients together when science runs out of answers. That conversation is about faith.

I personally did not have it for a long time. For most of my thirty-five years in medicine, I kept faith neatly …

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What happened when I brought faith into medicine

Conditions and diseases

Why thymic involution is the aging organ doctors miss

There is an organ sitting behind my sternum that most of my patients have never heard of. Most of my colleagues rarely mention it. And yet, quietly, steadily, for the past four decades, it has been disappearing. The thymus. The…

There is an organ sitting behind my sternum that most of my patients have never heard of. Most of my colleagues rarely mention it. And yet, quietly, steadily, for the past four decades, it has been disappearing.

The thymus. The schoolhouse of the immune system. The place where T cells learn to distinguish self from non-self, friend from threat. By the time most of us reach our fifties, roughly 85 …

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Why thymic involution is the aging organ doctors miss

Drugs and prescribing

PRP therapy protocols lack expert consensus

As a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) physician, I have guided patients through musculoskeletal care. Recently, my focus has shifted toward regenerative medicine, particularly platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy. What began as curiosity is now a strong commitment to understanding…

As a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) physician, I have guided patients through musculoskeletal care. Recently, my focus has shifted toward regenerative medicine, particularly platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy. What began as curiosity is now a strong commitment to understanding these therapies for patients who have exhausted conventional treatments.

This new focus led me to attend an intensive weekend course with experts from orthopedics, sports medicine, PM&R, rheumatology, and pain medicine. …

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PRP therapy protocols lack expert consensus

Physician voices

The prostate cancer recovery few men are warned about

An excerpt from Before and Beyond the Scalpel: Prehabilitation and Pelvic Floor Recovery After Prostate Cancer. When I heard the word "cancer," I was not prepared, and I am a physician with more than 35 years of experience. Intellectually, I…

An excerpt from Before and Beyond the Scalpel: Prehabilitation and Pelvic Floor Recovery After Prostate Cancer.

When I heard the word “cancer,” I was not prepared, and I am a physician with more than 35 years of experience.

Intellectually, I knew prostate cancer carries a high cure rate when caught early, as mine was. I understood the staging, the options, and the survival statistics. I had counseled patients through diagnoses far …

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The prostate cancer recovery few men are warned about

Drugs and prescribing

The $500,000 drug and the cost of modern medicine

I met him as a patient with a back condition, not a cardiac patient. A 70-year-old man who looked like he had outrun aging through sheer willpower and a well-worn bicycle. He rode more than a hundred miles a week,…

I met him as a patient with a back condition, not a cardiac patient. A 70-year-old man who looked like he had outrun aging through sheer willpower and a well-worn bicycle. He rode more than a hundred miles a week, had the resting heart rate of a seasoned athlete, and carried himself with the kind of confidence that comes from a lifetime of good health. His only complaint was lower-back …

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The $500,000 drug and the cost of modern medicine

Conditions and diseases

Unrecognized depression is a hidden crisis in medicine

I began my physical medicine and rehabilitation residency in 1986, during the height of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. Fear shaped every personal interaction. We were still learning how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) spread, how to protect ourselves, and…

I began my physical medicine and rehabilitation residency in 1986, during the height of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. Fear shaped every personal interaction. We were still learning how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) spread, how to protect ourselves, and how to care for patients who were as terrified of the diagnosis as they were of the disease.

Of all the many patients I saw that year, one has particularly stayed …

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Unrecognized depression is a hidden crisis in medicine

Physician voices

How ethical dilemmas in medicine affect body donation

Many clinicians recall cases that stand out not for their diagnostic complexity, but for their ethical dilemmas. One such experience involved a long-time patient, a devout Catholic in his 70s, who asked if donating his body to science conflicted with…

Many clinicians recall cases that stand out not for their diagnostic complexity, but for their ethical dilemmas. One such experience involved a long-time patient, a devout Catholic in his 70s, who asked if donating his body to science conflicted with his church’s teachings.

For years, I have displayed a favorite prayer on a poster in my office called “Prayer of the Catholic Physician.” This display gave my patient the opening to …

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How ethical dilemmas in medicine affect body donation

Conditions and diseases

Why MRI classification systems improve spinal stenosis care

The saying, "treat the patient, not the X-ray," captures a core challenge we face in spine practice: Clinical symptoms and imaging findings often do not align, making it crucial to approach imaging with a structured framework. This lesson was evident…

The saying, “treat the patient, not the X-ray,” captures a core challenge we face in spine practice: Clinical symptoms and imaging findings often do not align, making it crucial to approach imaging with a structured framework. This lesson was evident when we treated two patients with strikingly different presentations. The first was a 35-year-old woman whose MRI report identified severe scoliosis and spinal stenosis. Yet, she was totally asymptomatic, with …

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Why MRI classification systems improve spinal stenosis care

Health technology

Navigating the cybersecurity challenges of artificial intelligence in medicine

Artificial intelligence, or "AI," is fast becoming indispensable to modern medical practice. Whether they are using complex prognostic algorithms to model possible disease outcomes or they are upgrading medical bookkeeping applications, physicians employ various forms of AI to aid in…

Artificial intelligence, or “AI,” is fast becoming indispensable to modern medical practice. Whether they are using complex prognostic algorithms to model possible disease outcomes or they are upgrading medical bookkeeping applications, physicians employ various forms of AI to aid in daily tasks. And while these tools can produce unprecedented benefits, the increased incorporation of AI in medical practice also brings with it a number of key cybersecurity challenges. Medical information, …

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Navigating the cybersecurity challenges of artificial intelligence in medicine

Conditions and diseases

Navigating postoperative complications and post-surgical depression

Six months ago, I encountered a challenge I never expected: a robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy. Even now, writing about it feels surreal. Cancer rearranges life without warning, and surgery, regardless of how "minimally invasive" brochures describe it, alters you in ways…

Six months ago, I encountered a challenge I never expected: a robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy. Even now, writing about it feels surreal. Cancer rearranges life without warning, and surgery, regardless of how “minimally invasive” brochures describe it, alters you in ways only understood through experience.

The post-op instructions said that, within hours of surgery, I needed to stay active. That sounded simple enough beforehand. But no one asked about my fitness …

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Navigating postoperative complications and post-surgical depression

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