Dr Craig Smith has been awarded an honorary chair by MAHSC and will become MAHSC Professor of Stroke Medicine from 1 August.
Craig is currently a Consultant in Stroke Medicine at the Greater Manchester Neurosciences Centre, based at Salford Royal, and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Stroke and Vascular Research at The University of Manchester. He is also Specialty Lead for stroke in Greater Manchester Clinical Research Network.
Craig has contributed significantly to the implementation and delivery of hyperacute and acute stroke management, service development and clinical governance at Salford Royal and also nationally to the Intercollegiate Stroke Guidelines.
Alongside his clinical activities, he has developed an evolving translational research programme focused on infection, inflammation and immune responses in cerebrovascular disease.
Craig’s research addresses how inflammatory and immune responses are altered after stroke, and how these responses (and infections) might contribute to worse outcome.
He chairs the international Pneumonia In Stroke ConsEnsuS (PISCES) Group, a collaborative consortium which aims to investigate how we can diagnose pneumonia after stroke more accurately, and improve how we predict which patients are at risk of developing it using national stroke registry data and laboratory biomarkers.
He has also led the development of collaborative intervention studies to try and prevent pneumonia occurring in stroke patients, for example strategies to improve oral hygiene and reduce aspiration associated with swallowing problems.