NAME: CHARLES ROGER GOUCKE
FPM DEAN FROM 2006 – 2008
QUALIFICATIONS:
BM BS (LIVERPOOL) 1972
FFARACS, 1986
FANZCA 1992
Charles Roger Goucke was born in the United Kingdom and received his medical qualification in Liverpool in 1972, before moving to Australia to continue his education. After working overseas for several years, he returned to Australia to further his vocational training, largely in the field of pain medicine. He has a particular interest in pain management in low- and middle-income countries, and has developed the “Essential Pain Management” course and implemented it in over 41 countries. Goucke is a Foundation Fellow and past Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine, past Head of Pain Medicine at the Sir Charles Gairdner Pain Management Centre in Perth, and has also served as President of the Australian Pain Society.
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Charles Roger Goucke was born in the United Kingdom. He qualified with a Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Liverpool in 1972, before spending time travelling through Africa and Australia. He then decided to pursue his training in Tropical Medicine at the University of Sydney. He put these skills to use as he worked in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and South Korea for several years until he again returned to Australia to begin his vocational training in anaesthesia in Perth.
Goucke began work as a consultant at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in 1989. He was later appointed Head of Pain Medicine at the hospital – a position he held for twenty years. His work in the field of pain medicine continued in a time of immense growth for the specialty in Australia during the mid-1990s. Goucke was on the planning committee that made the submissions to the Australian Medical Council to create a specialised faculty for pain medicine, a vision that came to fruition in 1998. Goucke is a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine, ANZCA, and the Australian Chapter of Palliative Medicine of RACP. He was President of the Australian Pain Society from 2000 to 2003, and also served as Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine from May 2006 until 2008, before retiring from the Board in 2009.
Another of Goucke’s major achievements has been the development and implementation of the Essential Pain Management program, alongside Dr Wayne Morriss and with support from ANZCA and the Faculty of Pain Medicine. Noting the lack of training opportunities for pain management in Papua New Guinea, Goucke set out to produce a program to redress this issue. The program has now been translated and shared into Vietnamese, Mongolian, Spanish and Swahili and implemented in over 41 countries. It has provided essential training for thousands of pain medicine practitioners in how to recognise, assess, measure, and treat pain, and treatment for thousands more in resource-scarce countries who previously lacked access to these services.
Goucke has made a significant and lasting contribution to the development of pain medicine in Australia as well as overseas, through the Essential Pain Management program, and his work to help the Hong Kong College of Anaesthetists set up their own faculty of pain medicine. He identifies the “whole-person” side of pain medicine that incorporates many causes of pain and a wide array of practitioners as what draws him to the specialty and keeps him challenged by it.
REFERENCES
The information in these biographies has been researched via the ANZCA Archives with the assistance of the individual Fellows.
IMAGE REFERENCES
- Charles Roger Goucke portrait (photograph)