Dr. Joy MacDermid is a professor in the School of Physical Therapy at the University of Western Ontario and is the Co-director of Clinical Research at the Hand and Upper Limb Centre (London, ON).
She is a hand therapist/physical therapist/epidemiologist and has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, 20 chapters and two books that focus on measuring and predicting musculoskeletal disability. Her methodology expertise is in measurement, knowledge translation, clinical trials, systematic reviews, clinical practice guidelines, cohort studies/clinical prediction.
She has developed outcome measures that are used internationally including self-report measures like The Patient Rated Wrist/Hand Evaluation; and impairment-based measures that assess the neuromusculoskeletal function of the upper limb. She has more than 25 years of clinical experience in treating patients with musculoskeletal pain and disability resulting from upper quadrant disorders. Dr. MacDermid is co-editor of the book Evidence-Based Rehabilitation which is used as a textbook internationally to teach evidence-based practice. Her research papers in open access are typically awarded “highly accessed” designation and the most downloaded/cited in print journals.
Dr. MacDermid is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a former president of the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT), has twice won its best scientific paper award, was awarded the Nathalie Barr Lecture in 2006, the Philadelphia Hand Meeting Honored Professorship in 2006 and 2012, the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis (IMHA)/Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Quality of Life Award in 2007 and the IMHA/CIHR Research Ambassadors Knowledge Translation Award in 2011.
She is an associate editor for the Journal of Hand Therapy, the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, and on the editorial board of Open Orthopedics and the Journal of Physiotherapy.
She has mentored three postdoctoral fellows, 20 PhD students, 40 masters' students, 40 physicians and/or other health disciplines to complete their research training/research.