Associate Professor Paul McCrory

MBBS PhD FRACP FACSP FFSEM(UK) FASMF FACSM FRSM GradDipEpidStats

Dr McCrory is a consultant neurologist and sports physician.  After graduating in medicine from the University of Melbourne in 1983, he completed specialty training in Internal Medicine, Neurology, Sports & Exercise Medicine and Hyperbaric/Diving Medicine and was then appointed as a consultant neurologist to Box Hill, William Angliss and Maroondah Hospitals in Melbourne, Australia.

He holds a Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Australasian College of Sports Physicians and is an honorary Fellow of the Australian Sports Medicine Federation, a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He has extensive clinical experience with the management of sport-related neurological injury including brain, peripheral nerve and spinal cord injury.

In addition to clinical work, he has an academic appointment at the Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine (CHESM) at the University of Melbourne where he is currently the acting Director of the Centre. He also holds adjunct academic appointments at the Brain Research Institute (University of Melbourne), Deakin University and the University of NSW. He currently holds a National Health & Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) Clinical Career Development Award (2006-2011) and formerly held a Clinical Research Fellowship (2001-2005). 

He was the editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine (2001-8) and former editor of Sport Health as well as an editorial board member of the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, Physician and Sports Medicine, Current Sports Medicine Reports and the Year Book of Sports Medicine. He has published over 200 papers and given more than 300 presentations at international conferences. The majority of these publications are on traumatic brain, spine and nerve injury. He was awarded the Syntex Australian Investigator of the Year in 1994 and 1995 for research into concussive brain injury in sport. He is founding member and co-chair of the Vienna Consensus Group formed following the 1st International Conference of Concussion in Sport in 2001 and does consulting work for The Jockey Club (UK), IOC and FIFA.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, he has served as President (2002-2004) of the Australasian College of Sports Physicians (ACSP) as well as on the Court of Examiners of the ACSP and on the Victorian State Branch Council of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He is past-president of the Victorian Branch of Sports Medicine Australia and serves on the BASEM (UK) executive as an ex-officio member as well as the Institute of Sports & Exercise Medicine (UK) as a Board member. A/Pr McCrory also worked as team physician from 1984 to 1997 to the Collingwood Football Club in the Australian Football League.
He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, 25 book chapters and given more than 300 presentations at international conferences. He was co-author of the reports on Boxing Injuries and Football Injuries to the Head and Neck for the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia

Contact details:

• Telephone:             +613 8344 3773
• Facsimile:               +613 8344 3771
• Email:                    p.mccrory@unimelb.edu.au

Teaching responsibilities:

• Higher degree research student supervision
• Specialist lectures

Fields of expertise:

• Neurology
• Sports and Exercise medicine
• Diving and hyperbaric medicine
• Epidemiology

Research interests:

• Neurotrauma
• Sports concussion
• Boxing injuries
• Nerve injury
• Alpine injuries

Members of external research groups:

• Biomechanics and gait lab, School of Safety Science, University of NSW
• Intenational Consensus Group in Sports Concussion
• FIFA Medical Research Centre, Zurich

Selected publications:

Bladin C, McCrory P. Snowboard Injuries - A Review. Sports Medicine 1995; 19: 358-364

Bradshaw C, McCrory P, Bell S, Brukner P. Obturator Neuropathy: a new cause of groin pain. Am J Sports Med 1997; 25(3): 402-408

McCrory P, Berkovic SF, Bladin PF. Retrospective study of concussive convulsions in elite Australian rules and rugby league footballers: phenomenology, aetiology and outcome. Br Med J 1997; 314: 171-174

McCrory PR Were you knocked out? A team physicians approach to initial concussion management. Med Sci Sports Ex 1997; 29 (7); S207-S212

McCrory PR, Berkovic SF. Concussive convulsions: incidence in sport and treatment recommendations. Sports Medicine 1998; 25(2): 131-136

McCrory P, Berkovic SF. Second Impact Syndrome. Neurology 1998; 50 (3): 677-684

McCrory P, Berkovic SF. Videoanalysis of the motor and convulsive manifestations in acute sport-related head injury. Neurology 2000; 54: 1488-1492

McCrory P. Vertebral artery dissection causing stroke in sport. J Clin Neurosci 2000; 7: 298-300

McCrory P, Ariens M, Berkovic SF. The nature and duration of acute concussive symptoms in Australian football. Clin J Sports Med 2000: 10: 235-239

McIntosh A, McCrory P. Impact energy attenuation performance of football headgear. Br J Sports Med 2001; 34: 337-342

McIntosh A, McCrory P. The dynamics of concussive head impacts in rugby and Australian rules football. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2000; 32: 1980-1985

McCrory P, Cordner, S, Berkovic SF. Deaths in football in Victoria1968-1999. Med J Aust 2000: 172: 217-220

Johnson K, McCrory P, Mohtadi N, Meeuwisse W. Concussion - State of the art review - clinical science. Clin J Sports Med 2001; 11: 150-160

McCrory P, Johnson K, Mohtadi N, Meeuwisse W. Concussion - State of the art review - basic science. Clin J Sports Med 2001; 11: 160-166

McIntosh AS, McCrory P. Effectiveness of headgear in a pilot study of under 15 rugby union. Br J Sports Med 2001; 35: 167-170

McCrory P. The medicolegal aspects of automatism in mild head injury. Br J Sp Med 2001; 11: 288-290

McCrory P, Berkovic SF. Concussion: The history of clinical & patho-physiological concepts and misconceptions. Neurology 2001; 57: 2283-2289

Aubry M, Cantu R, Dvorak J, Graf-Baumann T, Johnston K, Kelly J, Lovell M, McCrory P, Meeuwisse W, Shamasch P. Summary and agreement statement of the 1st International Conference on Concussion In Sport, Vienna 2001. Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine 2002; 12: 6-12 also co-published in British Journal of Sports Medicine 2002; 36: 3-7 and Physician and Sports Medicine 2002; 30: 57-64]

Tuner M, McCrory P. Horseracing injuries: Injuries resulting from professional horseracing in Great Britain and Ireland during the period 1992-2000. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2002; 36: 401-407

Collie A, Maruff P, Makdissi M, McCrory P, McStephen M, Darby DG. CogSport: Reliability and correlation with conventional cognitive tests used in post-concussion medical examinations. Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine 2003; 13(1); 28-33

Zazryn T, Finch C, McCrory P. A 16-year prospective study of professional kickboxing injuries in Victoria. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2003; 37: 448-452

Zazryn T, Finch C, McCrory P. A 16-year prospective study of injuries to professional boxers in Victoria. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2003; 37: 321-325

McCrory P. Brain injury and heading in soccer. Br Med J 2003; 327: 352-352 Bladin C, McCrory P, Pogorelski A. Snowboarding injuries; Current trends and future directions. Sports Medicine 2004; 34 (2): 133-139

Collie A, Maruff P, McCrory P, Darby D. Statistical procedures for determining the extent of cognitive change following concussion. Br J Sp Med. 2004; 38: 273-279

McCrory P. Pre-participation screening for head injuries. Clin J Sports Med 2004; 14: 139-145

Moriarity J, Collie A, Olson D, Buchanan J, Leary P, McCrory P. The neuropsychological consequences of participation in an amateur boxing tournament. Neurology 2004; 62: 1497-1503

McCrory P. Football neurology. Lancet Neurology 2004; 3: 435-440

McCrory P, Collie A, Anderson V, Davis G. Can we manage sport-related concussion in children the same as in adults? British Journal of Sports Medicine 2004; 38: 516-519

Dvorak J, Junge a, McCrory P. Head injuries in soccer. Br J Sports Med 2005; 39 (Suppl 1): i1-3

Clauscen H, Andersen V, McCrory P. The risk of chronic traumatic brain injury in professional boxing - change in exposure variables over the past century. Br J Sports Med 2005; 39: 661-665

McCrory P, Johnston K, Meeuwisse W, Aubry M, Cantu R, Dvorak J, Graf-Baumann T, Kelly J, Lovell M, Schamasch P. Summary and agreement statement of the 2nd International Conference on Concussion in Sport, Prague 2004 British Journal of Sports Medicine 2005;39(Supplement 1):i78-i86

Finch C, Braham R, McIntosh A, McCrory P, Wolfe R. Should football players wear custom-fitted mouthguards? - Results from a group randomized controlled trial. Injury Prevention 2006; (in press/accepted 22/11/04)

Collie A, Makdiss M, Maruff P, Bennell K, McCrory P. Cognition in the days following concussion: comparison of symptomatic vs asymptomatic athletes. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiat 2006 (in press/accepted 22/08/05)

Fuller CW, Ekstrand J, Junge A, Andersen TE, Bahr R, Dvorak J, Hägglund M, McCrory P, Meeuwisse WH. Consensus statement on injury definitions and data collection procedures in studies of football (soccer) injuries. Clin J

Sports Med 2006 (in press/accepted 20/12/05). Also co-published in Br J Sports Med and Scandinavian J Sports Med.