John Orchard FACSEP (born 1967) is an Australian sport and exercise medicine physician, notable for advocating for rule changes in sport to improve player safety. In 2020 he was awarded a Member of the Order of the Order of Australia for significant service to sports medicine, particularly cricket. He is a member of the Australian government advisory group for sport responding to

COVID Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

, representing professional sport as the Chief Medical Officer for Cricket Australia and has been instrumental in cricket's response to COVID.

Professional sporting teams

He has worked as doctor for the

Sydney Swans The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a reser ...

Sydney Roosters The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional Rugby league, Rugby League Football Club based in the Eastern Suburbs (Sydney) and parts of inner Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. The Roosters have won ...

NSW State of Origin The New South Wales rugby league team has represented the Australian state of New South Wales in rugby league football since the sport's beginnings there in 1907. Also known as the Blues due to their sky blue jerseys, the team competes in the ann ...

rugby league team,

Sydney Sixers The Sydney Sixers are an Australian professional franchise men's cricket team, competing in Australia's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition, the Big Bash League (BBL). Along with the Sydney Thunder, the Sixers are the successors of the New ...

Cricket NSW Cricket NSW (officially known as the ''New South Wales Cricket Association'') is an Australian sporting association that administers cricket in New South Wales. It is based at the Sydney Olympic Park. The New South Wales Blues, the New South Wa ...

and the

Australian cricket team The Australia men's national cricket team represents Australia in men's international cricket. As the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, playing in the first ever Test match in 1877, the team also plays One-Day International (ODI) an ...

. An incident which led to some infamy was his on-field use of a staple gun to close a head laceration sustained by

Michael De Vere Michael De Vere (born 11 December 1976 in Caringbah, New South Wales) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He represented Australia in four tests and New South Wales in five State of Or ...

during a rugby league

State of Origin A State of Origin competition is a type of sporting event between players representing their state or territory. State of Origin began in Australian rules football on 8 October 1977 between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval ...

match . He also was the doctor on the field who responded to

Phillip Hughes Phillip Joel Hughes (30 November 1988 – 27 November 2014) was an Australian Test and One Day International (ODI) cricketer who played domestic cricket for South Australia and Worcestershire. He was a left-handed opening batsman who play ...

when he was felled by a cricket ball during a match in 2014, an injury from which the player later died.

Injury prevention advocacy

Australian Football League

He spent over 20 years as the injury surveillance coordinator for the

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

. During this time injury surveillance drove many rules changes in the league including the centre-circle line (which reduced the rate of knee posterior cruciate ligament injuries in ruckmen) and reductions in permitted interchange to prevent muscle strains.

National Rugby League

As Sydney Roosters doctor, he was outspoken on the need to ban the shoulder charge tackle in the

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

prior to this occurring.

Cricket

He campaigned for the introduction of substitutes for concussion in cricket and was the doctor at an Australian domestic game when this rule was first used in 2016. He was cited as having been a key driver of change when the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are List of International Cricket Council members, 108 national associations, with 12 List of Internation ...

introduced Concussion substitutes in 2019, along with conducting research in general regarding concussion in cricket. He also had a role in cricket making a boundary rope compulsory after reporting on injuries caused by fence collisions.

Research

He is an academic (Adjunct Professor) at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

and has published over 200 research papers with over 10000 citations. He is a co-author on multiple

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

consensus expert statements on preventing injuries in sport.

Orchard Sports Injury and Illness Classification System (OSIICS)

John Orchard developed a sports injury classification system in 1993 called OSICS. It has been used by multiple sports in Australia, Europe and the USA. In 2020, it was expanded to include further illness codes and adopted as one of two recommended systems by the

References

External links

* https://www.sydney.edu.au/medicine-health/about/our-people/academic-staff/john-orchard.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Orchard, John Living people Australian sports physicians Members of the Order of Australia University of Melbourne alumni 1967 births Australian medical researchers People educated at Wesley College (Victoria) Australian cricket administrators