Jane Quinlan

Biography

I studied medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London; trained in anaesthesia at St Thomas’s and St Bartholomew’s Hospitals before coming to Oxford in 1997; and was appointed consultant in 2000.

I have been Trust lead for Pain at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and continue to be an honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford. 

I am secretary of the Acute Pain Special Interest Group (APSIG) for the International Association for the Study of Pain; a past chair of APSIG of the British Pain Society; a core member of the Opioid Painkiller Dependence Alliance, and am on the editorial board of the British Journal of Pain.

My pain interests include opioid painkiller dependence; persisting post-surgical pain; and pain management in neuromyelitis optica.

I am working with Ben Goldacre and his group at the Evidence Based Medicine DataLab to identify patterns of opioid prescribing across England.

I have been interviewed about chronic pain and opioid use for a documentary about back pain, which promotes the message about exercise, rather than drugs or surgery, as being the most effective long term management: 

https://www.itv.com/hub/tonight/1a2803a1224

With Katie Warnaby I am an investigator on the Oxford Persisting Post-Operative Pain Study (OxPPOPS). OxPPOPS is a major clinical trial to identify the incidence and predictive factors for development of chronic pain after surgery and its impact on quality of life. We have recruited over 700 patients undergoing caesarean section. Predictive factors under investigation include psychological, anaesthetic, surgical, genetic and hormonal factors as well as those relating to post-operative analgesic management and sleep. Identification of the variables that predict the development of persistent post-operative pain will allow interventions in ‘at-risk’ patients to be implemented.