Marie Joseph

Medical Director & Lead consultant in Palliative Medicine

biography

Dr. Marie Joseph was born in Colombo, SriLanka in 1957 and qualified as a medical doctor in 1981 obtaining a first class honours degree, fulfilling childhood ambition and with immense gratitude to God and to her parents for their untiring support. She started her medical career in the United Kingdom since 1983. She became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, UK in 1985 and was honoured as a Fellow of the Royal college of Physicians, in 2004. While pursuing a career in general internal medicine and specifically in the field of cardiology, she encountered a patient suffering with intense pain from cancer which ‘broke my heart’ which resulted in a complete change of direction and motivated her to embrace the specialty of palliative medicine and pain management from 1989 which she has passionate about even to date. Her very special interest is in controlling neuropathic pain from cancer. She have devised an analgesic triad,utilising the principle of ‘synergy’ for severe neuropathic pain management which she have found very useful in improving efficacy while minimising medication induced toxicity. She is now keenly exploring the use of combined opioid therapy in a safe and effective manner in patients suffering from complex pain with a predominant neuropathic component.She is also interested in integrating oncology with expert palliative care pain management in order to improve the overall quality of life of patients with advanced malignancy. Her research interest is in using a trans-dermal medication to control terminal lung secretions in adult patients dying from end stage malignancy. In addition to her passion for the clinical specialty of palliative medicine and in particular for neuropathic pain management, She also enjoy being an educator for both medical and nursing students and have obtained accreditation as ‘RCP Educator’. she enjoy listening to classical music and playing the piano as a means of relaxation which she find crucial in the light of the emotional impact of my work. She is also blessed with a very supportive husband and a daughter who is studying medicine. She is also advocate combining clinical excellence with empathy in caring for patients. Her devout faith as a catholic Christian inspires and strengthens my work as she derive great comfort and satisfaction in alleviating pain and suffering in patients and consider this a real privilege.

 

Area of Interest

Dr Marie Joseph is currently analysing the data from pilot clinical trial into ‘death rattle’ in which she evaluated the efficacy of a trans-dermal medication preparation in reducing the severity of terminal lung secretions (‘death rattle’) in adult patients dying from end stage malignancy.


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