Rate My Professor Ted Shipton

Emeritus Professor Ted Shipton holds the position of Emeritus Professor in the Department of Anaesthesia within the Department of Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Otago, Christchurch, Faculty of Medicine. He earned his MB ChB from the University of Cape Town, MMed and DMed from the Orange Free State, GradDipMed from Sydney, along with fellowships DA, FFA, FANZCA, FRCA, and FFPMANZCA. In 2001, he was appointed to the Chair of Anaesthesia at the University of Otago, Christchurch, serving as Head of Department for 20 years. Since 2004, he has been Clinical Director of the Pain Management Centre at the Canterbury District Health Board, overseeing an interdisciplinary service with over 4000 annual patient contacts.

Professor Shipton has held significant leadership roles in pain medicine, including election to the Board of the Australian and New Zealand Faculty of Pain Medicine (ANZCA) in 2005, chairing the Education and Training Committee, Vice-Dean in 2012, and Dean from 2014 to 2016. He directed the Pain@Otago Research Theme and contributed to medical education by chairing the Medical Education Committee for sixth-year students, representing the department on the Faculty Curriculum Committee, and serving on various school committees. His research interests encompass pain medicine pharmacology, prevention of persistent postoperative pain, complex regional pain syndrome, mitochondrial myopathies in anaesthesia, regional anaesthesia, and the intersection of chronic pain with obsessive-compulsive disorder. With over 165 peer-reviewed publications cited more than 3,100 times, key works include Sloley et al.'s "Chronic pain and obsessive-compulsive disorder: A scoping review" (Pain & Therapy, 2025), Shipton et al.'s "Systematic Review of Pain Medicine Content, Teaching, and Assessment in Medical School Curricula Internationally" (Pain and Therapy, 2018), and Shipton’s "Predictors of Persistent Acute Postoperative Pain" (Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care, 2005). He has lectured widely nationally and internationally on pain medicine.