Dr Jon Ford Clinician | Researcher | Director

Jon's passion for helping people has been a common thread. As a clinician providing F2F care, as a researcher ensuring he is providing evidence-informed care, as an educator by spreading this knowledge and as a company director gather similar-minded clinicians, collaborating across disciplines and raising money to fund clinically focused research. Plus, he spends 6 months knee-deep in seawater, coaching juniors in surf life-saving.

In our conversation, Jon shares a common pathway; graduation, hospital rotations, overseas work/travel, and returning to Australia to get serious. But he was ahead of the curve and with a chronic pain referral base, a room and several thousand articles, he developed in isolation, a model of management in the early 1990s for this group of patients. This approach was to arrive later on the Physio treatment horizon and was called the bio-psycho-social model.

Throughout his clinical and research careers, Jon has sought to further his understanding of pain management through self-education (completed Master's, PhD and Specialisation) and collaboration (Managing Director of Advance Healthcare with 60 doctors, physios and psychologists on staff).

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Resources Mentioned
World Congress LBP & Pelvis Keynote address
Geoff Maitland Interview with Mark Jones (1600 views, Dec 2023)

Biography
In the early 90s whilst lecturing at The University of Melbourne Jon began developing evidence-based treatment models for people with back pain.  He subsequently established Spinal Management Clinics (part of the LifeCare group) which became one of the leading providers of physiotherapy and multi-disciplinary pain management programs in Australia. In 2014 to enable a greater focus on improving clinical quality and research, Jon with the practitioners below, purchased and rebranded the clinics as Advance Healthcare. 

Jon graduated as a physiotherapist in 1988 and then completed his Credentialing in Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy in 1999, his Musculoskeletal Master's in 2000, his PhD on the classification of low back pain in 2005 and in 2018 graduated in the first-ever cohort of Pain Specialists (as a Fellow of the College of Physiotherapists). This demonstrates Jon’s passion for lifelong learning in order to help practitioners and patients achieve their potential.

Jon's clinical and research interest is the individualised treatment of musculoskeletal pain (with a focus on low back pain).   He continues his academic work leading the Low Back Pain Research Team at La Trobe University where he has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles. His academic work provides a constant source of evidence-based knowledge that is integrated into