Professor Fabrizio Schifano, Chair in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics; consultant psychiatrist, Psychopharmacology, Drugs of Misuse and Novel Psychoactive Substances Research Unit; School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire (UK)
What do you do? and what is a typical week for you?
I have a very diverse role and no week is the same for me. For half of my working week I am a Lecturer and Chair in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics; Head of the Psychopharmacology, Drugs of Misuse and Novel Psychoactive Substances Research Unit School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire (UK).
The other half of my week I am on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD, UK) Core Member and Chair of the Image and Performance-Enhancing Drugs/IPED working group.
I am also a Member of the Specialist Advisory Group (Psychiatry) for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and attend many meetings.
I also work at ‘Change, Grow, Live’ (CGL) as a Consultant Psychiatrist providing holistic care for service users with alcohol misuse problems (Drug and Alcohol Hertfordshire Recovery Services; UK)
What qualifications and experience do you have?
I studied at the University of Padua, qualifying in both psychiatry and clinical pharmacology. To achieve MD, FRCPsych, Dip Psychiatry, Dip Clin Pharmacology
I spent several years as a consultant in the Italian health service before moving to the UK to lecture at St George’s University of London. In 2006 I moved to the University of Hertfordshire as Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics – a role that combines part-time work as an addiction psychiatrist for CGL.
What’s the most interesting aspect of your job?
Working with, listening to and helping my drug misusing clients; I learn a lot from them for example; I listen carefully; I take notes; and then I try my best to understand what they are doing and why they are choosing those particular molecules.
I explain how their body if effected by taking those molecules in an attempt to reverse their behaviors.
What are your research interests?
I am one of the very few physicians in Europe with training and specialist qualifications in both psychiatry and clinical pharmacology. Outstanding contribution has been made to several areas, including:
- Novel psychoactive substances/NPS; Internet and drugs: Unprecedented knowledge has been provided on the epidemiological, psychopathological and overdose issues related to the misuse of NPS. It is a new area of research and I have been the Principal Investigator of 6 consecutive EU Commission-funded, multi-center (i.e. 12 EU countries), Novel Psychoactive Substance-based, research program (since 2002). Results from the main of these studies have provided the only comprehensive and multilingual analysis of the online available information on psychoactive compounds so far.
- Furthermore, for the ACMD I am leading the work on performance and image enhancing drugs.
What one piece of advice would you give to someone seeking a career in clinical pharmacology?
Strong levels of clinical pharmacology knowledge do increase the clinician’s expertise relating to any medical fields they are involved with.