Nathan Augeard, PhD, PT
Health Professions Education Researcher and Physiotherapist
Nathan Augeard is a health professions education researcher and physiotherapist whose scholarship focuses on how health professionals are prepared for complex practice, how educational quality can be evaluated, and how meaningful educational change can be achieved across curricula and professional programs.
His work has established particular expertise in pain management and physiotherapy education while addressing broader questions across health professions education. His research spans competency development, educational assessment, curriculum evaluation, learner preparation, partnered and experiential learning, and implementation.
Across this work, Nathan has led and contributed to national and multi-institutional initiatives involving learners, educators, clinicians, researchers, professional organizations, and people with lived experience. His scholarship has generated national competencies, assessment approaches, large-scale evidence on learner preparation, curriculum-level insights, and implementation knowledge designed to strengthen professional education.
Research Scholarship
Nathan's scholarship spans three complementary areas of health professions education.
Preparing Learners for Practice
A central focus of Nathan's research is understanding how professional education prepares learners to respond effectively to the complexity of clinical practice.
His work has addressed this challenge from multiple perspectives. He contributed to the development of national pain-management competencies for physiotherapy, helped develop and validate an assessment of those competencies, and contributed to a national evaluation of graduating physiotherapy students' preparation for practice.
His qualitative research has further examined how learners make sense of their educational experiences and which aspects of training become meaningful resources as they move into clinical practice. This work has highlighted the importance of how knowledge is positioned, reinforced, demonstrated, practised, and connected across educational settings.
Nathan has also contributed to research on partnered and experiential learning, including educational activities involving people with lived experience. This work examines learning not only in terms of knowledge acquisition, but also in relation to how learners interpret different forms of knowledge and incorporate them into professional reasoning.
Together, this body of scholarship addresses a fundamental challenge in health professions education: how educational experiences are translated into capabilities that learners can mobilize in practice.
Evaluating Educational Quality and Innovation
Nathan's research also contributes to the rigorous evaluation of educational outcomes, programs, and approaches.
A major component of this work has involved translating complex professional expectations into outcomes that can be meaningfully assessed. The Pain Education in Physiotherapy competency assessment was developed to evaluate graduating learners' ability to apply pain-management knowledge and reasoning in clinically relevant situations.
Nathan subsequently contributed to the application of this work at national scale, examining learner preparation across Canadian physiotherapy programs and integrating assessment findings with information about curriculum structure and educational exposure.
His scholarship therefore extends beyond the development of educational tools to the evaluation of how effectively professional programs prepare learners and how educational experiences vary across institutions.
This work reflects a broader commitment to educational evaluation that is methodologically rigorous, sensitive to context, and capable of examining educational quality at multiple levels.
Educational Change and Implementation
Nathan's research also examines how educational priorities become embedded within curricula and professional education systems.
As part of his doctoral work, he investigated barriers and facilitators to integrating pain-management competencies across Canadian physiotherapy programs using an implementation-informed approach. This research identified factors operating across educators, curricula, institutions, resources, and professional environments that shaped educational change.
Complementary curriculum research examined how pain-management education was positioned and delivered across Canadian physiotherapy programs, providing insight into the ways educational priorities are interpreted and operationalized across institutions.
Nathan's work in this area connects educational research with the practical realities of curricular change. It emphasizes that defining educational standards is only one part of improving professional education; their impact also depends on how they are interpreted, integrated, reinforced, and supported within educational systems.
National Contributions to Pain and Physiotherapy Education
Nathan has contributed substantially to a coordinated body of national research aimed at strengthening pain management education in Canadian physiotherapy.
This work has included the development of a national competency profile describing what physiotherapists should be able to do in pain management; the development and validation of the Pain Education in Physiotherapy competency assessment; national evaluation of graduating physiotherapy students; investigation of how pain education is integrated across entry-level curricula; and examination of barriers and facilitators to implementing pain-management competencies.
The national assessment included 539 graduating students from 14 of Canada's 15 entry-level physiotherapy programs, providing a system-wide perspective on professional preparation across Canadian physiotherapy education.
Taken together, this body of work spans several levels of educational inquiry: defining professional expectations, operationalizing them for assessment, examining learner outcomes, evaluating curricular integration, and identifying the conditions that shape implementation.
This combination of competency development, assessment, national evaluation, and implementation research represents a substantial contribution to the evidence base supporting pain and physiotherapy education in Canada.
Leadership and Field Building
A defining feature of Nathan's work is its emphasis on building the collaborations, communities, and infrastructure needed to advance education across institutions.
He founded the Community of Practice on Pain Education in Physiotherapy, a national network bringing together educators from Canadian physiotherapy programs to support collaboration, knowledge exchange, educational improvement, and knowledge mobilization.
His work has connected researchers, educators, clinicians, professional organizations, learners, and people with lived experience across multiple institutions and initiatives.
Nathan has also contributed to broader work in competency development, professional education, educational assessment, and the involvement of people with lived experience in health professions education.
These activities complement his research record by demonstrating a sustained commitment to strengthening not only the evidence base for professional education, but also the communities and collaborations required to translate that evidence into educational practice.
Research Impact and Scholarly Approach
Nathan's scholarship combines conceptual, methodological, and applied contributions.
His work has generated competency frameworks, assessment tools, national educational data, curriculum-level evidence, implementation knowledge, and qualitative insights into how educational experiences shape preparation for practice.
Methodologically, his research includes competency and consensus methods, educational assessment development and validation, large-scale multi-institutional studies, curriculum evaluation, qualitative interpretive research, intervention research, and implementation-informed approaches.
This breadth has allowed him to examine professional education across multiple levels, from defining expectations for practice to assessing learner preparation, understanding educational experiences, evaluating curricula, and studying the conditions that influence educational change.
Connecting Research and Professional Practice
Nathan maintains close links between health professions education research and physiotherapy practice.
He is a licensed physiotherapist and founder of Physio Connection, where his clinical work has focused particularly on persistent and complex pain.
This continued engagement with clinical practice provides an important perspective on professional expectations, the transition from education into practice, and the realities of managing complex clinical problems.
Areas of Expertise
Nathan's scholarship includes:
health professions education;
preparation for complex professional practice;
educational evaluation;
competency development and assessment;
educational implementation and change;
partnered and experiential learning;
curriculum research;
physiotherapy education; and
pain management education.
Selected Publications and Research Outputs
Nathan's peer-reviewed work and research outputs include contributions to:
national pain-management competencies for physiotherapy;
development and validation of the Pain Education in Physiotherapy competency assessment;
national evaluation of graduating physiotherapy students;
pain-management education across Canadian physiotherapy curricula;
barriers and facilitators to implementing pain-management competencies;
involvement of people with lived experience in education; and
educational experiences that shape preparation for professional practice.
Selected Publications and Research Outputs
Augeard N, Bostick G, Miller J, Cooper L, Singer L, Wideman TH. (2026). Pain management education in Canadian physiotherapy: Lessons from a decade of coordinated efforts. Physiotherapy Canada. https://doi.org/10.3138/ptc-78-2-gee
Longtin C, Bhanji A, Houston E, Augeard N, et al. (2026). Integrating people living with pain into pre-licensure pain education: A novel learning activity for health professional students. Disability and Rehabilitation. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2025.2563770
Augeard N, Longtin C, Bussières A, et al. (2025). Implementing pain competencies in Canadian physiotherapy education: Challenges, barriers, and opportunities. Canadian Journal of Pain. https://doi.org/10.1080/24740527.2025.2574969
Augeard N, Bhanji A, Miller J, et al. (2025). Integration of pain management competencies in Canadian physiotherapy education: A national survey. Physiotherapy Canada. https://doi.org/10.3138/ptc-2025-001
Augeard N, Miller J, Bostick G, et al. (2025). Development of a pain management competency assessment for physiotherapy students: Integrating simulation and written assessments. Canadian Journal of Pain. https://doi.org/10.1080/24740527.2025.2512728
Hudon A, Augeard N, Tansey CM, et al. (2024). Does feeling pain help prepare future clinicians to treat pain? A qualitative exploration of a novel experiential approach to teaching health professional students about pain. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 40(11), 2550–2562. https://doi.org/10.1080/09593985.2023.2254367
Woznowski-Vu A, Augeard N, et al. (2023). Response to the recommendations of the Canadian Pain Task Force: Position paper from the physiotherapy profession. Canadian Physiotherapy Association. https://physiotherapy.ca/app/uploads/2023/04/CPA_NPM2023_Report_EN_v4-1.pdf
Augeard N, Bostick G, Miller J, et al. (2022). Development of a national pain management competency profile to guide entry-level physiotherapy education in Canada. Canadian Journal of Pain. https://doi.org/10.1080/24740527.2021.2004103