Rate My Professor Charles Douglas

Dr. Charles Douglas is a cancer surgeon and academic in the fields of medicine, medical law, ethics, and philosophy. He is currently a Casual Academic in Clinical Ethics and Health Law at the University of Newcastle's School of Law and Justice, having previously served as Senior Lecturer in Clinical Ethics and Health Law in the School of Medicine and Public Health. Originally studying mathematics and physics at the University of Adelaide, he commenced medical training at the University of Newcastle in 1985, completing a Bachelor of Medical Science with first-class honours in transplantation immunology in 1988 and a Bachelor of Medicine with honours in 1990. He earned a Juris Doctor in 2021, receiving the College Medal from the College of Human and Social Futures. After completing postgraduate training in general surgery, including a one-year research break on ethics related to surgery in 1999, he was appointed Lecturer in Clinical Ethics and Health Law, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2008. He retired from his salaried role at the end of 2020 but continued as Conjoint Senior Lecturer and resumed teaching in 2025.

Douglas completed his PhD in 2012 on medical law and end-of-life decision-making, and has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed papers across ethics, clinical decision-making, basic science, surgery, and oncology. Key publications include "Oncology patients' and oncology nurses' views on palliative chemotherapy: a cross-sectional comparison" (Collegian, 2021), "Patient-reported outcomes with neoadjuvant vs adjuvant systemic therapy for operable breast cancer" (Breast, 2019), "Informed consent guidelines for ionising radiation examinations: A Delphi study" (Radiography, 2020), "Addiction medicine ethics: relapse, no lapse and the struggle to treat addicts like everyone else" (Internal Medicine Journal, 2017), and "Moral concerns with sedation at the end of life" (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2014). He has received awards such as the College Medal (2021), Sir Edwin Hughes Memorial Research Prize (1999), inaugural General Surgeons Australia Best Paper Prize (1999), Ethel and Olive Hewitt Medical Research Scholarship (2001), and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Research Scholarship (1999). A Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, he has worked as a consultant surgeon in breast cancer and melanoma surgery at the Breast Centre, Gateshead, directed the Newcastle Melanoma Unit (2010-2015), and currently serves as Clinical Director of Voluntary Assisted Dying for the Hunter New England Local Health District (since 2023).