Professor Stephan Schug

Professor Stephan Schug is Emeritus Professor and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Medical School of the University of Western Australia, Perth. He recently retired from his previous positions as Chair of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine and Director of Pain Medicine at Royal Perth Hospital.

He studied medicine at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he also obtained his MD by thesis in clinical pharmacology and subsequently specialised in anaesthesia and pain medicine. Subsequently, he became the first Chair in Anaesthesiology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has written among others 80 research and 180 review papers. He is currently also retiring from editorial and review boards of several leading journals, membership of several pain and anaesthesia societies including longstanding membership of the Board of FPMANZCA. His principal research interests include the management of acute and chronic pain, cancer pain, regional anaesthesia, the pharmacology of local anaesthetics and analgesics and quality improvement in health care.

Acute pain management became one of his major interests with the development of the Acute Pain Service of Auckland Hospital in 1989. He has been a contributing editor for the second and third edition of Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence under the guidance of Pam Macintyre. He then became the Chair of the editorial working group for the fourth edition (2015) and this did not deter him to repeat this task for the fifth edition presented here. After his university refused him a sabbatical to do this, he retired in October 2019 to complete this “retirement project”. With this now completed, he will retire from all medical involvement to find finally time for other things important in his life including photography, literature, arts, music and travelling, in particular by campervan and houseboat, while enjoying (and cooking) good food with the accompanying wines.