U of S appoints director of School of Physical Therapy

"Teaching flows from research," said Milosavljevic, who began a five-year term as director on Jan. 28. "Not everything that is taught can be fully justified by research, but everything that is taught that can't be justified by research should generate the questions for researchers to investigate. They are intricately linked and they cannot be divorced."
Milosavljevic graduated with a BAppSc (physio) from Curtin University in Perth, Australia, in 1975, and worked for several years as a physiotherapist before returning to school. He completed a postgraduate diploma in manipulative therapy in 1985 and graduated from the University of Otago in New Zealand with an MPhty (manips) in 1998. Milosavljevic then taught at the university and worked part-time as a clinician. He completed a PhD at the University of Otago, where he also became associate dean of research and post-graduate students at the School of Physiotherapy at the University of Otago.
"We were a developing school of physiotherapy at Otago with a small number of research-active staff. I was responsible for helping to recruit 23 doctoral students and driving the research program."
Since 2004, he has supervised 11 doctoral students, been awarded $2.2 million in grants and published 68 journal articles and peer-reviewed manuscripts.
"The strategy of applying for grants, getting strategic research funds and having students doing projects that are of interest to the health-funding agencies puts you in pretty good stead and that helped drive my career."
Some of Milosavljevic's research has explored occupational health issues of farmers in New Zealand and he's eager to work with other scientists at the University of Saskatchewan to learn more about the issues here. He's particularly interested in the management of back pain and the occupational exposure to whole body vibrations, common for farmers who sit for hours in tractors and other agricultural machinery.
Milosavljevic hopes to expand research collaboration to involve scientists from universities beyond the U of S, capitalizing on his ties to the University of Otago and a half-dozen other institutions around the world.
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For more information, contact:
Michael Robin
Research Communications Specialist
(306) 966-1425
michael.robin@usask.ca