Rate My Professor Stephan Schug

Stephan Schug is an Emeritus Professor and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Medical School at the University of Western Australia, having retired in October 2019 from his positions as Professor and Chair of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Western Australia and Director of Pain Medicine at Royal Perth Hospital. He studied medicine at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he obtained his MD by thesis in clinical pharmacology titled 'The Pharmacokinetics of Combined Antibiotic Therapy in Newborns under Special Consideration of Gentamicin' in 1983. He subsequently specialised in anaesthesia, intensive care, and pain medicine. Early in his career at the University of Cologne, he served as Consultant Anaesthetist and Co-Director of the first German cancer pain treatment centre. In 1989, he moved to New Zealand, initiating one of the first Acute Pain Services in Australasia at Auckland Hospital. He progressed to Senior Lecturer, then Associate Professor and Head of the Section of Anaesthetics at the University of Auckland School of Medicine, and was awarded a Personal Chair in Anaesthesiology in 2000. In 2001, he joined the University of Western Australia, succeeding Professor Teik Oh as Chair of Anaesthesia in 2006. At Royal Perth Hospital, his clinical responsibilities included running a comprehensive inpatient pain service and a multidisciplinary Pain Medicine Centre accredited for training by the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists.

Professor Schug's research interests encompass the management of acute, chronic, and cancer pain; regional anaesthesia; pharmacology of analgesics and anaesthetics; and quality control in health care. Ongoing research focuses include ketamine in neuropathic pain, opioid stewardship, procedure-specific postoperative pain management, and the role of ketamine and lignocaine as preventive analgesics. He has published over 85 research papers, 180 review papers, abstracts, letters, and editorials, and has edited or co-authored books, book chapters, and monographs, including Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence. Notable recent publications include 'Improvements in health-related quality of life are maintained long-term in patients prescribed medicinal cannabis in Australia: The QUEST Initiative 12-month follow-up observational study' (2025), 'Rationale and design of a large trial of perioperative ketamine for prevention of chronic post-surgical pain' (2024), and 'Health-related quality of life in patients accessing medicinal cannabis in Australia: The QUEST initiative results of a 3-month follow-up observational study' (2023). His awards include the Robert Orton Medal (2016), Bonica Lecturer of the Australian Pain Society (2011), and University of Auckland Distinguished Teacher Award (1995). He has served on editorial and review boards for journals such as Pain & Therapy, Annals of Palliative Medicine, and Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology, and was a member of the Board of the Australian & New Zealand College of Anaesthetists from 2011 to 2019.