Nicola Burgess

Nicola is a senior orthopaedic physiotherapist at a major metropolitan hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She is in the final year of her PhD at the University of Melbourne and is a Melbourne Academic Centre for Health (MACH) Research Fellow. Her research focuses on optimising pre-operative care for people undergoing total hip and knee arthroplasty surgery. She investigates current orthopaedic prehabilitation practice, barriers and enablers to implementation, and strategies to deliver more personalised, evidence-based care. As part of her doctoral research, Nicola is developing a screening tool to identify modifiable risk factors before orthopaedic surgery and support stratified, needs-based prehabilitation.