Mark Johnston, MBChB

Dr. Johnston has been a Musculoskeletal Medicine Specialist since 2001 and works in the community looking after acute and persistent spinal and peripheral pain problems. In New Zealand, most interventional pain procedures are not routinely performed in Government-funded hospitals but by community-based practitioners.

Dr. Johnston received his interventional pain procedure training in the early 2000s from Professor Nikolai Bogduk and his team of Newcastle-based Australian teachers. He then helped set up the Auckland Musculoskeletal Interventional Pain Service Ltd with 5 others in 2005 and has been providing interventional procedures since. As new members joined the group, he helped oversee their progress to become competent interventional pain practitioners.

Since 2012, Dr. Johnson has been attending IPSIS Annual Scientific Meetings and sharing new updated knowledge with his colleagues. In 2017, in an effort to develop consistent standards in interventional procedures performed by Musculoskeletal Medicine specialists, he became an IPSIS Instructor. Covid–19 lockdowns have limited travel from New Zealand, so training in interventional pain procedures has had to be done in New Zealand. This has been coordinated by Dr. Johnston and other senior IPSIS members.