Dr. Nikesh Seth is a double board-certified interventional pain specialist and the founder and CEO of Global Pain Solutions in Scottsdale, Arizona. His career spans more than 15 years of clinical practice, during which he built one of the Southwest’s largest independent pain management groups before making a deliberate decision to start over with a smaller, patient-first model.
Seth trained at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Arizona College of Medicine, UTHealth Houston, and Northwestern University, where he completed a fellowship in interventional pain management. He has been recognized as a Top Doc by Phoenix Magazine on multiple occasions and has received recognition from Scottsdale Magazine as a leader in medicine.
His approach to success is rooted in two parallel commitments: advancing what is clinically possible in pain care and showing up fully for his family. He donates regularly to organizations including the American Red Cross, Pratham USA, and the Arizona Police Fund. He coaches his son in golf and programming, watches his daughter perform, and draws his professional resilience from the example of parents who built a full life starting from very little.
How do you define success as a physician and as a business founder?
Success in medicine is not something you can measure by clinic volume or years of practice. For me, it comes down to whether a patient leaves my care with a better life than they had when they came in. That sounds straightforward, but it takes real discipline to hold onto when you are also running a business and managing a growing team.
As a founder, success means building something that can actually deliver on that standard reliably. I had to sell a practice I built from scratch to learn what kind of organization makes that possible. The version I am building now is shaped by everything I got right and everything I got wrong in the first attempt.
What was the hardest decision you made in your career?
Selling Integrated Pain Consultants was not an easy call. I spent nearly a decade building that practice, and by the time I sold it we had more than 15 providers and more than 10 locations across multiple states. That kind of growth is hard to walk away from on paper.
But the discipline of running a large, private equity-adjacent organization and the discipline of practicing the kind of medicine I wanted to practice had started to pull in different directions. I made the decision to prioritize the medicine. Starting over felt right, even if it looked strange from the outside.
What role has failure played in your development?
You do not get through medical training without developing a relationship with failure. The residency environment, particularly at a place like the Texas Medical Center, teaches you quickly that you will not always have the answer, and that the answer is to keep working until you find one.
In business, failure looks different. It is slower. A process breaks down and it takes months to understand why. I learned to treat those moments the same way I treat difficult clinical cases: gather the information, resist the urge to jump to conclusions, and be honest about what the evidence is actually telling you.
How do you stay current in a field that moves as fast as pain medicine?
The field of interventional pain management has changed dramatically even in the 15 years I have been practicing. Regenerative medicine, the expansion of minimally invasive techniques, the refinement of how we think about neuropathy and spine care: none of that was standard when I completed my fellowship at Northwestern.
Staying current is not optional in this work. A patient who comes to me with chronic sciatica or low back arthritis deserves to know that the approach I am recommending reflects where the evidence is today, not where it was when I trained. I treat continuing education the same way I treat patient care: consistently and without shortcuts.
What does success look like in your personal life?
I grew up watching my parents work hard and then turn around and give generously to the community around them. That combination, building something and then extending it to others, is the model I am trying to follow.
For me personally, success is being present for my kids in a way that matters. Playing golf with my son, watching my daughter perform, teaching him programming when he is curious about it. Those are the hours that tell you whether you have actually built the right kind of life, not the awards or the recognition.
How do you think about the long game in medicine?
Medicine rewards patience. The physicians I respected most in my training were not the ones with the most impressive credentials on paper. They were the ones who had been present for their patients over years and decades, who understood that trust is built through consistency and that outcomes follow trust.
I think about my career the same way. The goal is not to build the largest practice or to accumulate the most recognitions. The goal is to still be doing work I am proud of 20 years from now, with patients who know they can count on me to keep learning and to keep being honest with them about what the evidence supports.
If you have any questions or would like to get in touch with Dr. Nikesh Seth, please feel free to reach out via email at admin@gpsaz.net or by phone at 602-610-7299.