Dr Michael Schachter

Dr Michael Schachter is Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, based at the St Mary’s Campus. He is responsible for the organisation and  delivery of the clinical pharmacology course, with a recently increased emphasis on practical prescribing, and he is also the senior examiner for this subject. He is also a module co-leader and project organiser for the cardiovascular BSc course, and teaches on several other BSc courses and in years 1, 2 and 3. His largest single role however is as Faculty Senior Tutor, with a welfare and academic role encompassing the clinical years of the MB course but overall for the whole Medical School. He is therefore very much involved in School administration and organisation. He is also a postgraduate tutor for the Division.Dr Schachter won an Imperial College Teaching Fellowship and Teaching Excellence Award in 2004.  He is also an honorary consultant physician at Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust. Clinically his main involvement is in 2 half-day out-patient clinics  a week, in general medicine and in his clinical specialty, hypertension. He is a member of the Trust’s New Drugs Panel and orug and Therapeutics committee, of which he is vice-chair.

He qualified at University College London and also took an intercalated BSc in biochemistry. After his pre-registration year he worked at the Royal Marsden Hospital and then on a registrar rotation at King’s College Hospital, where he undertook research in the clinical pharmacology of Parkinson’s disease and narcolepsy at the University Department of Neurology. From then he moved to Oxford, and at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology there worked on mostly laboratory-based projects in cardiovascular and psycho-pharmacology.  On moving to St Marys’ Hospital Medical School he worked again mostly on laboratory-based projects relating to receptor pharmacology in a variety of tissues and clinical contexts. Later he became involved in research on prescribing errors and this remains a continuing interest. His increased involvement in medical education dates from the foundation of the joint undergraduate school at Imperial in 1997.

Dr Schachter reviews papers and articles for many journals and also reviews grant applications.  He contributes frequently to books and reviews, undeterred by ignorance. He is editor in chief of Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease, editor of the Journal of the Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System and an executive editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.  At times he is quite busy.