John Hanlon

Dr. Hanlon is the current Chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Pain Medicine Specialty Committee. He was the founding Program Director of the University of Toronto Pain Medicine Subspecialty Residency Program and, in 2018, founded the annual National Pain Medicine Ground School. This national initiative has fostered greater standardization of subspecialty training and strengthened academic collaboration across Canadian Pain Medicine programs.

In 2025, Dr. Hanlon received the Temerty Faculty of Medicine Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Medical Education in the category of Development and Innovation, recognizing his contributions to innovation and program development in postgraduate medical education.

At St. Michael’s Hospital, Dr. Hanlon serves as Director of Education for the Department of Anesthesia, where he provides leadership across undergraduate, postgraduate, and fellowship education.

Dr. Hanlon is also Director of the Ketamine for Depression and Ketamine for Chronic Pain Infusion Programs at St. Michael’s Hospital. He has developed and oversees clinical protocols, safety frameworks, interdisciplinary referral pathways, and outcome-monitoring systems for patients with treatment-resistant depression and complex chronic pain. This work bridges anesthesiology, psychiatry, and pain medicine, translating emerging evidence into structured, hospital-based models of care.

His clinical and research interests include chronic and postsurgical pain; neuropathic and spine-related pain; medical education; and the use of ultrasonography in pain medicine. His current scholarly work includes the role of cannabinoids and ketamine in pain medicine. He is an active research collaborator and has received CIHR funding for population-health research examining cannabis and opioid outcomes. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, as well as multiple book chapters related to pain medicine.