She is remembered as President John F. Kennedy's personal physician and a researcher of the concept of trigger points as a cause of musculoskeletal referred pain.

After completion of residency, Travell became a research fellow at Bellevue Hospital, where she studied the effects of digitalis in patients with lobar pneumonia.

Travell accepted a Josiah Macy, Jr. Fellowship at Beth Israel Hospital in New York to study arterial disease from 1939 to 1941.

Kennedy suffered from terrible pain possibly resulting from invasive back surgeries related to injuries sustained during World War II.

While serving as the President's personal physician, Travell also took on the role of Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University in 1961.

[4] Her personal interest led her to investigate, explain and expound on the phenomenon of myofascial pain syndrome, secondary to trigger points, first written about in the 1920s by Dr Dudley J.

Travell's research resulted in over 100 scientific articles, as well as the acclaimed 1983 co-authored book with David G. Simons: Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction.