RETAINING A CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE IN MACRO LEVEL CHANGES
With
Dr Shona Sundaraj,
Group Medical Director
Medibank
PEOPLE IN HEALTH CARE SEGMENT
Filmed in Sydney | August 2026
Dr Shona Sundaraj BAppSc (Phty), MBBS, FRACGP, MBA is Group Medical Director at Medibank, bringing over two decades of clinical and systems experience to strategy, research and stakeholder engagement. She leads the Medibank Better Health Research Hub and Chairs the Health Research Governance Committee, guiding stakeholder engagement, competitive grant rounds and partnerships with universities, translational research centres and peak bodies to support evidence based improvement in care.
Shona combines frontline clinical insight with corporate experience across health, insurance and primary care. Shona was awarded an Imperial Excellence Scholarship and completed her MBA through Imperial College Business School. She has completed executive leadership study at Harvard University. Her previous roles include senior medical positions at Zurich Financial Services and TAL, where she contributed to product innovation, risk mitigation and preventative health initiatives. She has led primary care operations through COVID19 period in primary care.
Her work is shaped by a lifelong commitment to healthy ageing as a life course priority, and to translating evidence into accessible, person-centred models of care. She has chaired both Sustainability and Research Governance groups, driven AI-enabled prevention pilots, supported medical education and worked in community volunteer clinics for vulnerable people experiencing homelessness.
A Sydney native, Shona is a mother of two and enjoys running and walking her two dogs along the harbour and beaches. Her focus in her roles as Senior Executive leader at Medibank, non-executive director and invited speaker is the practical impact that collaboration can have on the health of Australia.
Source: Supplied
Media access credit: Women’s Health MedTech Summit Australia 2026 | Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA)
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HIGHLIGHTS The power of social determinants of health, panel discussion
Clinicians and consumers know only too well that life circumstances such as poor housing, income and food insecurity can have a negative impact on health outcomes. Conversely, participation in community activities, social connection and access to nature parks and leisure facilities can help maintain health and wellbeing.
More recent phenomena in public health have also focused us on the health and social care connection. Stress factors such as the sudden loss of employment and social interaction, moving to remote work or schooling, and the impacts of sudden, localised COVID-19 ‘lockdowns’ to prevent further outbreaks were triggers of increased psychological distress.
And loneliness is being described as our latest epidemic with chronic loneliness inked to a myriad of health problems and earlier death. A recent report found one in four Australians say they feel persistently lonely, and that loneliness costs $2.7 bn a year in health costs alone.
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Clinical trial site in primary care setting open for novel therapies in psychiatry
Over the past decade, Paratus has been involved in over 200 clinical trials across 4 clinical site locations. Now a fifth site, the newly opened Melbourne site will cater to both primary care and psychiatry, specifically designed for psychedelic studies.
The new Melbourne site will be a focused on primary care studies specifically expanding access to psychiatric research, a growing area of unmet need. Australian Health Journal met with 3 recent hires brought in to support clinical trials across the organisation and in psychiatry in Melbourne.
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Intersection of multiple births, birth trauma and perinatal mental health
Mothers of multiples are five times more likely to experience depression and have triple the rates of anxiety compared to mothers of singletons. Danya McStein is a Clinical Team Manager at Gidget Foundation Australia, talks about mothers expecting twins showing prenatal depressive symptoms, while postpartum, facing higher risks of clinical exhaustion and postpartum depression.
