The Hon. John V. Prunskis 2023 'Person of the Year'

The Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture is proud to announce that its 2023 “Person of the Year” is physician, diplomat, businessman, and professor, the Hon. John V. Prunskis, M.D., F.I.P.P.. He receives the award for his career merits and for his contributions and service to the United States and Lithuania, his ancestral homeland. 

The co-founder of Illinois Pain and Spine Institute and the Regenerative Stem Cell Institute, Dr. Prunskis currently serves as a clinical professor of anesthesiology at the Chicago Medical School and the Chief Medical Officer of DxTx Pain and Spine. He is a Fellow in Interventional Pain Practice, the highest international designation, and has been voted by his peers an unprecedented 15 times as “Top Pain Doctor” in Chicago. One of the nation’s most notable physicians, he has redefined pain management to expect that the source of painful conditions be diagnosed prior to pain treatment. As a White House Presidential appointee, he co-authored the national guidelines on how pain should be diagnosed and treated. These guidelines were subsequently endorsed by every medical specialty society in the United States.  

Born to Lithuanian immigrant physician parents, Dr. Prunskis has dedicated much of his personal and professional life to his ancestral homeland, Lithuania, a country he holds dear to his heart. He was elected three times as a representative of Lithuanians living in the United States to the Lithuanian Parliament / World Lithuanian Community Commission, which he chaired by his second term. After Lithuanian regained its independence in 1990, he fought to scrap fifty years of stifling Soviet industrial and workforce policy regarding labor and business practices and pressed the Lithuanian Parliament to fully fund its NATO obligation of 2% of the gross national product on defense.  Similarly, when the World Health Organization identified Lithuania as the third highest per capita consumer of alcohol in the world, he introduced legislation and a three-year effort that led to a significant national decrease in alcohol consumption. For his professional and philanthropic contributions to the Lithuanian nation, he was bestowed the Knight of the Order of Merit by the President of Lithuania.

At the request of Lithuanian Ambassador Žygimantas Pavilionis, Dr. Prunskis served for more than 10 years as honorary consul of Lithuania in Aspen, the only U.S. State Department approved diplomatic mission in that city. In this capacity, he helped facilitate investments in Lithuania and elevated the awareness its geopolitical importance.

Now, at his request, and with the support of Lithuanian Ambassador Audra Plepytė, his diplomatic mission has moved to South Florida.  The region is home to the third largest diplomatic corps behind Washington DC and New York City and presents a fertile environment to increase awareness of Lithuania and strengthen relationships with both the diplomatic corps and citizens of South Florida.

He has forged international educational alliances through formation of an official academic relationship between Chicago Medical School and Vilnius University Medical School.  Now students and faculty at both institutions can work with each other in an official collaborative fashion.

John’s partner at the core of ‘Prunskis universe’ is spouse Dr. Terri Dallas-Prunskis, an exceptional physician and civic benefactor in her own right.  “In 1986 I met this tall, gorgeous Lithuanian man, having no idea where Lithuania even was,” she once said. They wed in 1991.

Together, both physicians fought the tyranny of prescribed opioids for more than two decades before America’s medical community acknowledged the practice.  Now “pain management” aims to diagnose and treat the source of the pain. 

His daughter Kristin, who studied medicine in Vilnius, is now serving her residency in pediatrics at the University of New Mexico Children’s Hospital in Albuquerque.  

Son Owen Prunskis, a brilliant math scholar at Harvard, now manages his family’s blossoming “DxTx Pain & Spine” pain management empire – 50 clinics across eight states, a staff of 500 and 275,000 patient visits last year. 

Kristin and Owen are fluent in Lithuanian. 

Dr. John Prunskis has built a career and business into a leader of the medical field as well as a selfless contribution to the strong independence of Lithuania.  He has become a Lithuanian-American man of the world by changing that world for the better.