Dr Charles Brooker holds qualifications with the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthesia in Pain Medicine and Anaesthesia. He is currently Head of Department of Pain Management at Royal North Shore Hospital. He is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Northern Clinical School , University of Sydney. He has appointments at North Shore Private Hospital and Royal North Shore Hospital.
Charles grew up in Chester UK and attended medical school in Sheffield. He worked in internal medicine and thoracic medicine in the UK gaining the MRCP qualification and then moved to Australia to train in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine in Sydney. Following a training program at Royal North Shore hospital and Westmead Childrens Hospital he worked in Hope hospital in Manchester UK before returining to Sydney to enter specialist practice in 1998.
He is interested in non drug interventions to assist with pain and how to integrate this with cognitive behavioural techniques and multidisciplinary care. He is involved in educating young specialists in these procedures and is on the examination committee of the Faculty of Pain Medicine as well as an active member of the IASP, Australian Pain Society and Neuromodulation society.
Dr Brooker has helped to develop new techniques of managing pain both in patients with chronic pain and cancer pain. He is an investigator in the Avalon trial and implanted the first patient in the world with the new Saluda spinal cord stimulator.