Jeffrey K Aronson

Dr Jeffrey Aronson, honorary consultant physician and clinical pharmacologist, University of Oxford

What do you do? and what is a typical week for you?

I am attached to the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford, working in tandem with academic general practitioners and statisticians, doing research and teaching.

I am currently supervising four DPhil students and two MSc students, and spend much of my time doing research that supports them and contributes to their work. I also act as a resource in my department for information about clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, advising others when their research involves medicines.

I lecture on all aspects of clinical pharmacology in various MSc and other courses and give invited lectures elsewhere. This includes pharmaco-dynamics/kinetics/genetics/economics/epidemiology. My next major assignment is to give the Bengt Erik Wiholm lecture, “The Language of Pharmacovigilance”, at the 2017 meeting of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance.

I am often asked to write review articles, editorials, and opinion pieces for medical and scientific journals. Recent examples include papers on biomarkers, drugs for rare diseases, the diagnostic use of post-mortem biliary drug concentrations, and, for a philosophy text, the definition of mechanisms.
Although clinical pharmacology is my main interest I also publish articles in the fields of medical history, philosophy, and linguistics, including a weekly blog in the British Medical Journal.

I am an associate editor of BMJ Evidence Based Medicine and Vice-President Publications for the British Pharmacological Society, of which I am an Emeritus President and Honorary Fellow.

I am an Emeritus Fellow of Green-Templeton College, Oxford, where I meet many colleagues from other disciplines, associations that often lead to or facilitate research activities.

I chair the British Pharmacopoeia Commission’s Expert Advisory Group on Drug Nomenclature and have published papers on naming medicines.

There is no such thing as a typical week. Every week is different and endlessly interesting.

What qualifications and experience do you have?

I graduated from Glasgow University with a medical degree in 1970. After 3 years of general medical training, I sat the examinations for Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). I came to Oxford in 1973 to train as a clinical pharmacologist, and my research on cardiac glycosides led to a DPhil degree in 1977. I then continued my general medical training coupled with clinical pharmacology research and became a consultant physician in 1980. I was for many years an on-take physician in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. I was made a Fellow of the RCP in 1985.

What’s the most interesting aspect of your job?

Clinical pharmacology is a small friendly specialty with an enormous range of opportunities. It covers the whole gamut of medicine and therapeutics, from anaesthesia to zoonoses, from abscesses to Zollinger–Ellison syndrome, and from abacavir to zuclopenthixol. One day you’re treating seriously ill patients or advising your colleagues about a new medicine; the next day you’re researching cardiovascular drugs at the bench or in a clinical trial, chairing your local drug and therapeutics committee, correcting the proofs of your latest Lancet paper, giving a keynote lecture at an international conference, advising Government about whether to license a new monoclonal antibody or protein kinase inhibitor, advising journalists about the value of a new medicine or report, or editing an internationally influential textbook. I have done all of these things.

Many clinical pharmacologists are academics; some are consultant physicians in busy teaching hospitals; and some specialize, for example in a medical specialty or clinical toxicology; some work in pharmaceutical companies; and some are involved in drug regulation (e.g. the MHRA, NICE). There are perhaps no careers in medicine that are more varied or interesting. Read more in a book called So You Want to be a Brain Surgeon.

What are your research interests?

My research interests encompass the whole of clinical pharmacology. I have for many years been working on adverse drug reactions and interactions and pharmacovigilance. A classification of adverse drug reactions that I and my colleague, Robin Ferner, have devised is becoming increasingly used. I have been involved, with him and others, in devising definitions relevant to various aspects of clinical pharmacology, some of which have been adopted internationally. Recently I have been interested in how medicines come to be withdrawn from the market and what one should do when a serious adverse reaction emerges after marketing.

What one piece of advice would you give to someone seeking a career in clinical pharmacology?

If you decide on a career in clinical pharmacology when you are a medical student, do a special study module in the subject; if one is not listed in your medical school’s curriculum, ask a local clinical pharmacologist if one can be arranged ad hoc. Make appointments to talk to as many Professors of Clinical Pharmacology as you can and seek their advice. Join the British Pharmacological Society – it’s discounted for students and recently qualified doctors – and go to its annual December meeting, where you’ll receive a warm welcome from clinical pharmacologists and you’ll be exposed to interesting basic and clinical science.



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