David Charles (physician)


David Charles is an American neurologist, the Chief Medical Officer of the Vanderbilt Neuroscience Institute, Professor and Vice-Chairman of Neurology, and the Director of Telemedicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Education

He joined the faculty of the department of neurology at Vanderbilt University in 1994.
In 1996 he completed the Health Care Management Program from the Owen Graduate School of Management. In January and May 1997 he completed Harvard Macy Institute's Program for Physician Educators and in 1998 studied deep brain stimulation and its use as a treatment of Parkinson's disease as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Universitaire de Grenoble in Grenoble, France.

Professional activities

Charles is the past chairman of the Public Policy Committee of the American Neurological Association, a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and the American Neurological Association, and board member of the United Council of Neurologic Subspecialties. He is a Past-President of The Tennessee Academy of Neurology. From 1997-98 he was a Health Policy Fellow in the United States Senate on the staff of the Labor Subcommittee for Public Health and Safety
At Vanderbilt he serves as Vice-Chairman of Neurology, and previously served as the Assistant Dean of Admissions for the Medical School, and the Neurology Residency Program Director.

Alliance for Patient Access

He is also the Chair of the Alliance for Patient Access, which, according to the Wall Street Journal "represents physicians and is largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry. The contributors mostly include brand-name drug makers and biotechs, but some – such as Pfizer and Amgen – are also developing biosimilars."
In 2013 he published an article on specialty drugs in which he agreed with the findings of the Congressional Budget Office that spending on prescription medications "saves costs in other areas of healthcare spending." He observed that specialty drugs are so high priced that many patients do not fill prescriptions resulting in more serious health problems increasing. His article referred to specialty drugs such as "new cancer drugs specially formulated for patients with specific genetic markers." He explained the high cost of these "individualized medications based on diagnostic testing; and “biologics,” or medicines created through biologic processes, rather than chemically synthesized like most pharmaceuticals." He argued that there should be a slight increase in co-pays for the more commonly using lower-tier medications to allow a lower co-pay for those who "require high-cost specialty tier medications."

Research

Charles' research is primarily focused on movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, cervical dystonia, tremor, spasticity, and neurotoxin injections. He has authored over 50 research publications and is currently the principal investigator in the only FDA approved clinical trial testing the efficacy of Deep Brain Stimulation in people with early stage Parkinson's disease.

Publications

His most cited article is
He has 12 papers with 12 citations or more.