Andrew Dowson
Biography
Dr Andrew Dowson (MBBS 1984 London. PhD 2005)
Clinical Lead for East Kent Headache Service , Bromley Community Headache Service, Princess Royal University Hospital Headache Service
Andrew Dowson qualified in medicine Guys Hospital, London in 1984, and developed an interest in Neurology before working as a GP for several years in Lancashire and Surrey. He then became a specialist in headache, initially focussed in research, at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford. He founded in 1996 and was Director until 2016 the NHS King’s Headache Service at Denmark Hill, London. He has developed Headache services in Bromley for Kings at the Princess Royal University Hospital (2010) and (2018) in the community for the Bromley GP Alliance. He has been Clinical Lead for the East Kent Headache Service since its inception in 2007. Dr Dowson is also head of his private practice at the Surrey Headache Service in Guildford
He was chairman of the umbrella organisation for the headache interested charities - Headache UK when the All Party Parliamentary Subcommittee on Headaches was founded. He was Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of Migraine Action at the time of petitioning Commissioner Ettinger at the European Commission in Strasbourg and Brussels to not allow candescent lights for use in private homes to become banned. He Chaired for many years MIPCA (Migraine in Primary Care Advisors) and the Primary Care and Community Neurology Society. He is a past Board Member for BASH (British Association for the Study of Headache) and was once Deputy Chairman of the SPM (Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine). He was Clinical tutor at the University Of Surrey for a PhD on qualitative assessment of headache.
Between 2007 and 2012 he was on the board for the Neurology Specialist Library within NHS Knowlegde and NHS evidence and was the Lead for the NHS 18 week waiting list initiative project in headache in 2008-9. Since 2009 he has been the headache module editor for eBrain an online teaching previously part of the European Association of Neurology. He has been the Clinical Lead for the MSc in headache at University of Edinburgh since 2012.
Dr Dowson has authored several books and book chapters and has over 125 peer review articles, 125 invited reviews and 170 poster presentations at international meetings on headaches. He has lectured Internationally, Nationally and locally for over 20+ years.