MB.BS (Hons) FANZCA, FFPMANZCA, FCIM
MB.BS (Hons) FANZCA, FFPMANZCA, FCIMMatthew Crawford is a specialist in anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine at the Sydney Children’s Hospital, the Prince of Wales Hospital Public and Prince of Wales Private Hospital. He is also an administrator at the Sydney Children’s Hospital, managing the procedural directorate, which includes anaesthesia, surgery, trauma and pain and palliative care.
After graduation from university in 1975, he undertook further training at the Prince of Wales and Prince Henry Hospitals and entered the anaesthesia training program there in 1977. Following completion of anaesthesia training he obtained further training in anaesthesia, research and pain management at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota USA for a period of two and a half years.
Upon returning to Australia in 1984 he became a member of the anaesthesia department at Prince of Wales Hospital (POWH) and the then Prince of Wales Children’s Hospital (POWCH) at Randwick. In 1985 he obtained qualifications in intensive care and undertook the development of paediatric cardiac anaesthesia and intensive care services at POWCH. Dr Crawford was instrumental in establishing new and innovative technology in the paediatric intensive care unit, including continuous airway pressure for the treatment of asthma in children, high frequency ventilation in neonates and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for children with respiratory failure.
In the 1986 he developed the Pain Treatment Clinic at POWH, followed by the Paediatric Pain Clinic at POWCH in 1992. He has been involved in Pain Medicine both in paediatric and adult practice ever since. He helped form the Eastern Suburbs Pain Clinic at the Prince of Wales Private Hospital in 2001 and remains one of its busier consultants, offering medical evaluations, interventional pain management techniques and ongoing supportive care.
Dr Crawford remains involved in paediatric anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine and has widespread research interests in all these areas. He is a member of the Special Committee Investigating Deaths under Anaesthesia (SCIDUA) with the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) of NSW, A member of the Agency for Clinical Innovation (Pain- Paediatric Clinical Advisory Group CEC), an examiner for the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthesia (FPMANZCA), and a member of the Training Unit Accreditation Committee of FPMANZCA.
He is involved in numerous overseas medical missions providing cardiac surgical services to underprivileged children in third world countries, including PNG, Burma and Rwanda. For his services to PNG he was awarded a Paul Harris fellowship by Rotary International in 2008 and the status of Member of the Order of Logohu by the PNG government in 2009.