Associate Professor Susie Lord is a specialist pain medicine physician with a background in anaesthesia and research. Her doctoral research led to multiple publications, informed spinal pain guidelines, and received international recognition, including the IASP Ronald Dubner Research Prize.
Associate Professor Lord is the clinical lead at the Children’s Complex Pain Service at John Hunter Children’s Hospital, where her advocacy contributed to establishing the first interdisciplinary paediatric complex pain service outside a state capital in Australia. She is also a conjoint senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle and a strong advocate for improving pain care for children and adolescents, First Nations communities, and people living in rural and remote areas.
She currently serves as the FPM representative on ANZCA Professional Affairs Executive Committee, is a member of the FPM Research Committee, and an observer for FPM Professional Affairs Executive Committee. She has held leadership roles across the pain sector, including with the Pain in Childhood Special Interest Group (SIG) within the Australian Pain Society and the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation Pain Management Network. Internationally, she has served on journal editorial boards, Cochrane review groups, and scientific committees.
Her current research focuses on improving capacity, equity, and access to high-value paediatric pain care across primary, secondary, and tertiary settings, with a commitment to embedding lived experience and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community priorities into service design. She is a Chief Investigator on two MRFF-funded projects, as well as several clinician-initiated and student-initiated research programs, leveraging digital innovation while preserving relational, culturally safe healthcare.