Emeritus ProfessorAnita Holdcroft

Dr Anita Holdcroft MB ChB, MD, FRCA is a Reader in Anaesthesia and Honorary Consultant Anaesthetist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Dr Holdcroft has authored textbooks on 'Body Temperature Control in Anaesthesia, Surgery and Intensive Care' (1979) and ‘Principles and Practice of Obstetric Anaesthesia’ (2000) and has a special interest in pain in women. She was the first Secretary (1999-2002) and is now the Co-chair (2002-2005) of the Special Interest Group on Sex Gender and Pain of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Her research has lead to invited lectures and presentations in Europe and North America and she contributes as a Board member and Editor of Europain and its associated Journal. Dr Holdcroft is the elected President of the Forum on Maternity and the Newborn at the Royal Society of Medicine, London. It was her original research that lead to the findings of brain changes during parturition and to the development of an MRC multicentre clinical trial of cannabinoids in postoperative pain (CANPOP).