Region’s Practice Lead Team

Andrew Bigness is a Chiropractor, certified Primary Spine Practitioner, and certified ACPAC (Advanced Clinical Practice in Arthritis Care) practitioner. Andrew Bigness is the Practice Lead for the Rapid Access Clinic for Low Back Pain at St. Michael’s Hospital (SMH) in the Toronto Central region. Andrew Bigness’ team consists of seven Advanced Practice Providers (APPs), conveniently located throughout the east side of Toronto. Dr. Henry Ahn, Dr. Jefferson Wilson, and Dr. Christopher Witiw sponsor our RAC program, and provide excellent surgical care. Local partnerships with TAPMI (comprehensive pain management), SMH Pain Management Clinic (injection and ablation intervention), SMH STAND clinic (vertebroplasty/kyphoplasty), and Dr. David Sussman (injection and ablation intervention) allow for excellent, expeditious pain intervention.

Region’s Practice Lead Team

Maria Rachevits is a Practice Lead for the Rapid Access Low Back Pain clinic Sunnybrook North Toronto region and an Advanced Practice Physiotherapist in the Hip and Knee Arthritis program at the Holland Center. She holds a Summa cum Laude medical degree from the Kiev Medical University (Ukraine) and a BSc (PT) degree from the University of Toronto (2003). She worked as an emergency physician in Bulgaria and Belgium before immigrating to Canada. She has twice won a grant provided by the European Union for a fellowship training in emergency medicine in Belgium. Currently she provides leadership to two Advanced Practice Providers in the RAC LBP model of care, has co-authored published papers on spine and hip/knee related research and has a few publications and delivered presentations on the topic of low back pain to specialized and general public audiences. She has received a PBR grant as a principle Investigator for “Telemedicine triage and Consultation in the Era of Pandemic” in 2022. Maria participated in the development of the Virtual Spine Assessment Toolkit by Bone and Joint Canada in 2021. She is a clinical instructor status only appointment at the Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medicine at U of T.

Region’s Practice Lead Team

Andrew Courchene is a physiotherapist and the Practice Lead for the RAC-LBP Mid-West and West Toronto region. Based out of University Health Network’s Toronto Western Hospital, Andrew and his team of 8 APPs provide timely access to low back pain care across the region. In addition to providing patients with comprehensive education and evidence based self management plans, the program has a close partnership with the Toronto Academic Pain Medicine Institute (TAPMI) for expedited injection therapy. Through collaborative workflows between practitioners in both programs, this partnership optimizes patient visits and decreases unnecessary follow-ups, benefiting both providers and patients. The TWH RAC-LBP program also has a partnership with the Spondylitis Screening Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital for early diagnosis and treatment of spondyloarthropathy. Finally, the team works closely with orthopaedic spine surgeons Dr. Raja Rampersaud and Dr. Christopher Neilson, along with neurosurgeon Dr. Taufik Valiante for patients requiring surgical consultation and management.