After graduating first in Medicine and completing a PhD, Associate Professor Susan Lord undertook training in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine (FANZCA, FFPMANZCA). Her doctoral work led to publications and acclaim (Intl Assoc for the Study of Pain, Research Prize), and continues to inform spinal pain guidelines decades later.

As a specialist pain medicine physician with a focus on youth, Associate Professor Lord’s advocacy contributed to establishing the first interdisciplinary Children’s Complex Pain Service outside a state capital in Newcastle 2013 and the Pain in Childhood SIG within the Australian Pain Society (APS).

Her contributions to the Australian Therapeutic Guidelines, Australian Medicines Handbook, and WHO Guideline on the Management of Chronic Pain in Children continue to shape practice. Her leadership roles on Faculty of Pain Medicine Board ANZCA, Pain in Childhood SIG Executive and NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation Pain Management Network are levers for policy development and dissemination.

Associate Professor Lord’s health services research aims to improve capacity, reach and equity of high value pain care to youth in HNELHD and beyond. Guided by lived experience voices, she is engaged in research across primary to tertiary pain care, leveraging digital solutions where possible, whilst maintaining and improving relational and equitable healthcare. She’s a CI on 2 MRFF grant-funded projects, other clinician-initiated projects and a student-initiated project.

Internationally, Associate Professor Lord has served on journal editorial boards, Cochrane reviews, and scientific committees. She endeavours to weave lived experience voices and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community priorities for pain care into her work.