Dr. John Chong
President of the Performing Arts Medical Association and Medical Director of the Musicians' Clinics of Canada
“Tuning the Mind and Body of the Musician for Optimal Health and Performance”

Dr. Chong’s roots are in Oakville, Ontario Canada, where piano lessons began at age 3 and advanced to the Royal Conservatory in Toronto with Clifford Poole on scholarship. After an injury to his right hand from practicing the Wanderer Fantasy when he was 14, he went on to study electronic music and composition with Samuel Dolin. He completed the ARCT in Piano Performance at age 17.  His prize-winning composition Continuum was performed by the Toronto Symphony the same year.

As the Medical Director of the Musicians’ Clinics of Canada, he has treated musicians with repetitive strain injuries, motor control problems, anxiety, depression, neuropathic pain, nerve entrapments, and stress-related disorders since 1986.  His clinical and research interest is regulation of the autonomic nervous system using neuro-biofeedback techniques for the prevention of repetitive strain injuries, focal dystonia, chronic pain, and depression. He teaches Performance Awareness at the Glenn Could School Performance and Artist Diploma Programs at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. He is the medical consultant for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and received the Governor General Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.  As a member of the Board of Directors of the Toronto Summer Musical Festival he has introduced injury prevention concepts to the gifted participants of the Academy.  He was a founding member and is the President of the Performing Arts Medicine Association leading the transformation “PAMAForte! – Rewriting the future of PAMA”.