Dr. Andrew Kochan was introduced to medical research beginning at an early age through his father, Dr. Ivan Kochan, Ph.D., who at that time was a graduate student in microbiology at Stanford University. As a teenager, Andrew worked in his father’s immunology research laboratory taking care of the animals used for immunologic experiments. His father passed on to Andrew the desire to explore new concepts, rigorous thinking, and the satisfaction that comes from scientific investigation.
After graduating cum laude with a B.A. in Chemistry from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Dr. Kochan received his M.D. in 1977 from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Following an internship at Valley Medical Center in Fresno, California he completed a two year Bioengineering Research Fellowship at UCLA in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery. As a result of this work, two papers written by him regarding anterior cruciate ligaments of the knee were published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. In 1984, he completed his residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Southern California and was Board certified.
During his residency training Dr. Kochan evaluated patients who were suffering with chronic pain and the resulting physical and social disabilities. It was his feeling that many of these chronic pain issues were at least partially a result of misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment of their problem. His frustration over conventional medicine’s inability to relieve the pain and suffering of many of his patients, led him to examine a number of complementary healing modalities years before this trend became fashionable. His exploration included training in osteopathic evaluation and manipulation at Michigan State University, acupuncture through the UCLA School of Medicine, as well as homeopathy, apitherapy, and hormonal and nutritional factors involved in healing.
However, the treatment technique he found uniformly most helpful to the majority of his patients with musculoskeletal (MSK) pain was prolotherapy.
Dr. Kochan began practicing prolotherapy, a complementary non-surgical medical treatment for musculo-ligamentous pain in 1984 over thirty-six years ago, well before its present-day surge in popularity. He incorporated the use of ultrasound for precision guidance of his injections over ten years ago and started doing platelet injections (PRP) for regenerative healing about that same time. He continues to evaluate the use of orthobiologic materials including placental tissue, and adipose and bone marrow derived “messenger signaling cells” (MSC), as additional regenerative agents.
In 1989, Dr. Kochan incorporated apitherapy, particularly bee venom therapy, into his practice as a treatment for certain specific chronic and acute pains, including shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia pain, as well as burn scar and post operative scar pain. Dr. Kochan is a leading international authority on apitherapy and a former President of the American Apitherapy Society (AAS). Dr. Kochan continues to promote public and professional awareness about the medicinal value of honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and bee venom for a wide range of disorders.
He is a long time member of two prolotherapy / regenerative medicine organizations: the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine (AAOM) since 1984, and the Hackett-Hemwall-Patterson Foundation (HHPF) since 2003. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine in 2018. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the AAOM and involved in the education and training of physicians learning prolotherapy and ultrasound guided injection techniques in both the AAOM and HHPF.
Dr. Kochan serves as a volunteer physician with the Hackett-Hemwall-Patterson Foundation, which is dedicated to educating the public about prolotherapy and delivering health care programs to under-served populations. He travels to Honduras, yearly since 2003, to perform prolotherapy for indigent patients in local communities. He has been to Guadalajara and Cancun several times each year for the last 10 years with the AAOM to work in free clinics and to teach physicians the technique of prolotherapy.
Dr. Kochan has been in private practice since 1984. He remains committed to furthering research and sound clinical practice in integrative pain medicine, combining conventional and proven complementary approaches for relieving acute and chronic pain. He has a personal stake in furthering the advancement of the science of this aspect of complementary medicine because of his own experience with long term injury and instability of his low back, neck, left knee and both shoulders.
Dr. Kochan, a sports enthusiast, enjoys mountain biking, scuba diving, driving his 1991 Porsche Carrera convertible, performing close-up magic, playing the piano, gardening, and is in the process of restoring a 1965 Buick Riviera and a 1973 Porsche 911S Targa.
