Bev is a clinical physiotherapist and teacher in the fields of chronic pain and healthcare communication. She is a founder and director of the non-profit organisation Train Pain Academy NPO, formed to provide collaborative pain education and skills-training to healthcare professionals managing acute and chronic pain in normal clinical practice. 

She obtained her MSc Medicine in Pain Management through Sydney University in 2007 and has additional qualifications in Healthcare Communication and Motivational Interviewing. She is the national representative for South Africa and is on the Advisory Committee of EACH (The International Association for Communication in Healthcare). 

She is passionate about helping healthcare professionals learn skills to form strong therapeutic relationships with their patients that will enable them to change and live a life they find meaningful.

Romy Parker is an Associate Professor and Director of the Pain Management Unit in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Cape Town. She is an active researcher who has successfully supervised numerous postgraduate students. Associate Professor Parker is the course convenor of the Postgraduate Diploma in Interdisciplinary Pain Management, the first programme of its kind in Africa. She is an experienced physiotherapy clinician working in chronic pain management as part of the Chronic Pain Management interdisciplinary team of Groote Schuur Hospital. Her research focusses on pain, with emphasis on developing and testing mechanism-based treatments relevant to a South African context. She is the current president of PainSA (the South African chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain), Past-Chair of the Pain, Mind and Movement Special Interest Group of IASP and an Honorary Life Member of the Pain Management Physiotherapy Group of the South African Society of Physiotherapy.

Tory Madden is a clinical physiotherapist and researcher with a longstanding interest in human health, particularly in the processes that underlie persistent pain and learning. She holds a PhD in pain. She works at the University of Cape Town as a senior lecturer in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine and the Neuroscience Institute and is involved in Groote Schuur Hospital’s interdisciplinary Chronic Pain Clinic. Tory has taught Pain Sciences to undergraduate and postgraduate physiotherapy students at the University of South Australia and she currently teaches on UCT's Postgraduate Diploma in Interdisciplinary Pain Management. For Train Pain, Tory teaches on the Pain Interventions course and assists with the Medical Communications course. (Photo by Robyn Walker)

Dr Kerry-Ann Louw is a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University. She currently runs consultation-liaison psychiatry services at Tygerberg Hospital. Kerry completed both her undergraduate and postgraduate training at the University of Cape Town obtaining her FC Psych qualification in 2011, MMed in 2012 and MPhil in Liaison Mental Health in 2015. Kerry worked in the Division of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at Groote Schuur Hospital from 2011-2016. Her special interests include the complex interactions between psychiatric and medical illnesses, chronic pain, psycho-oncology and women’s mental health. She is part of the Tygerberg Hospital chronic pain management multidisciplinary team.

 

Dr Janieke van Nugteren is a specialist Anaesthetist at Groote Schuur Hospital. She completed her undergraduate training at Wits and went on to specialise in Anaesthesia at University of Cape own. Dr van Nugteren has been the head of the Chronic Pain Management Unit at GSH since 2009. Since taking over the clinic she has assembled an interdisciplinary team who assess and manage patients living with chronic pain. The team comprises anaesthetists, physiotherapists, psychiatrists and psychologists.

Melissa Saw is a clinical physiotherapist and academic based in Cape Town. Her main passion in clinical physiotherapy is pain management and teaching health professionals how to assist patients in this field. She completed her undergrad BSc physio at UCT. She then went on to complete her postgrad MSc in OA and pain at UCT, her research was based on group interventions to target pain and function. This research yielded 2 published articles and 2 congress presentations. She has completed the Certificate in Pain Management and joined the Train Pain lecturing team in 2017. She also presented numerous CPD activities regarding pain management. Melissa has been involved in teaching both undergrad and postgrad students at UCT and is actively involved in clinical education with undergraduate students at Stellenbosch. She is also the chairperson of the Western Cape’s Pain Management Physiotherapy Group.

Scott completed a Medical Honours degree in Exercise Science at the Sport Science Institute of South Africa (1995) in Cape Town before moving to Stellenbosch to study Physiotherapy. After graduating he worked in a private practice in Johannesburg for 5 years. He then relocated to the UK where he was the Professional Lead of the Physiotherapy Division at the University of Hertfordshire.He obtained an additional qualification as a Musculoskeletal Sonographer and completed his MSc degree. During this time, he also worked in the NHS where he scanned patients and performed ultrasound guided injections. Scott returned to South Africa in 2013 and currently splits his time between private practise and a non-profit intermediate care facility/hospice called Bethesda.