Exhausted and discouraged from living with chronic pain that no one seemed able to relieve, Elizabeth Leahy decided to go to a new Ukrainian doctor she'd heard about who had recently opened a clinic in San Antonio.

It was the best decision she ever made, Leahy declares, explaining that Dr. Dmitriy Buyanov took the time to be kind as well as thoroughly professional; sympathetically listening to her ongoing struggle and then coming up with ways to help her cope.

"Dr. B gets results," she says. And, you bet, she'd definitely recommend him to others who are hurting because the man sincerely believes in-and lives up to-his medical motto: "Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional."

Buyanov, the founding/lead physician and owner of Premier Pain Consultants, P.A. is a dedicated crusader waging war on suffering. And he's winning. In less than six years time, the personable physician, who still speaks with a heavy Ukrainian accent, has established a thriving clinic with four offices throughout the city, attracting a strong staff of medical professionals and a growing list of pleased patients such as Leahy who aren't just enthusiastic about his proficiency but his pleasant personality as well.

This outgoing nature and desire to make patients his friends guided Buyanov to his present specialty.

"I started out in anesthesiology," Dr. B explains. "But how can you discuss a case with a patient who is dreaming away on the operating table? How can you get any feedback? You're just the person who puts someone to sleep for the surgeon."

And that role, although certainly fine and necessary, didn't fully satisfy his medical aspirations. He needed something more, and pain medicine where patients become the physician's partners in treatment, proved to be his answer.

"It is wonderful to hear somebody say, 'Doc, I'm doing better … just using a little cane now.' I tell you, the appreciation is so rewarding," the physician declares.

Though rewarding, pain intervention is demanding, he continues. That dreaded word "ouch" comes in dozens of different guises, providing a daily challenge for doctors aiming at assisting the afflicted.

From headaches, to backaches, to phantom limb pain when a leg or arm has been amputated, to conditions with strange sounding names like fibromyalgia-the ways human beings can hurt seem virtually endless. Causes can sometimes be elusive. Often pain seems to come from no physical cause at all. Therefore, a physician dealing with pain might be weary at the end of a hard day, Dr. B reflects, but never bored by the business.

Generally speaking, pain falls into two categories: acute and chronic. When hurting goes on beyond the expected time of healing, most experts call it chronic. It's the nagging sort of misery that can bring on many undesirable and debilitating side effects such as depression, sexual dysfunction or inability to keep a job. Chronic conditions are the kind Dr. B sees most frequently at the clinic.

All the clinic physicians are proficient in cervical, thoracic and lumbar procedures. They utilize intervention methods such as blocks, injections, stimulators, pumps and, on occasion, prescription medicines. One expert offers acupuncture.

Along with providing these procedures, equal emphasis is placed on emotional well-being.

"Never underestimate the good a comforting word can do," Dr. Buyanov declares.

The pain doctor was born 42 years ago in Kiev, the capitol and largest city in the Ukraine. He fell in love with medicine at the tender age of 13; entered medical school at 16-one of the youngest medical students ever.

His homeland is neighbored by Russia, which lies to the east, and is a picturesque country of fertile plains, plateaus and winding rivers on their way to the Black Sea. Dr. B confides that he gets homesick from time to time and tries to return each year for a vacation. He misses the magnificent architecture and churches.

Sadly, a low birth rate and high death rate have taken a devastating toll on the Ukrainian population. Poverty still plagues the land. Indeed, when Buyanov was doing his internship and later his anesthesiology residency at Ukrainian State Medical University, Hospital No. 22, resources were severely limited. The young physician, who was licensed at age 24, concluded that while skilled professionals were practicing and certainly needed in his native country, he had to leave it behind in order to excel.

Along with his wife, Polina, also a trained physician (they met in medical school) he made the difficult decision to enter the New World by way of Canada and hopefully find a life with more promise.

Though acquainted with English, it was still a struggle to deal with medical terminology during his anesthesiology residency at Penn State University's Hershey Medical Center. An even greater challenge was working on a pain medicine fellowship.

A strong sense of purpose and his good wife's constant encouragement carried him through, he points out. And he was able to emerge with flying colors from Hershey's medical program, ready to take on the toughest problems related to pain.

In 2003 the doctor was recruited by Neurosurgical Associates of San Antonio to come to the Alamo City as a pain management physician with a multi-specialty group. And in 2004 he opened his own clinic.

"Amazing what he and his wife have accomplished … just amazing," says patient Elizabeth Leahy.

The Buyanovs, brave enough to pull up their roots and transplant their lives, now have a new child as well as a successful business-little Nikita, just 4 ½. He will grow up in America where opportunity is unlimited for those willing to work hard to achieve their dreams. But like the rest of the Buyanov family (there's also an older son, Dmitriy Jr., 21, who is studying physics in London) he will have respect for his heritage.

Dr. B says the Ukraine lives in your heart forever although you're living far away.