Gold Coast Bulletin’s Power 100 2022: Meet our Top 10 medical professionals
Dr Riaan Jeffrey was named the best local GP in the city and he’s had a lengthy career in cosmetic surgery and specialising with kids. Meet our other medical movers and shakers.
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These are the Gold coast’s most influential people.
The power brokers, movers and shakers, those at the top of their game, celebrities, entrepreneurs and CEOs who are putting the city on the map.
Our journalists and editors have spent weeks debating whose influence and work matters most in 2021 – and now it’s your turn to read, argue, ponder and share the first instalment: medicos.
Stay tuned as each week for the next five weeks we reveal the most influential in our city’s most important industries: Medical, influencers and entrepreneurs, real estate agents, hospitality moguls and developers.
As we suffered through our second year of the global Covid-19 pandemic the community continued looked to health officials and experts for advice and guidance.
Here’s 10 of the Gold Coast’s most influential medical professionals.
10. Dr Riaan Jeffrey – Capri Medical Centre
As voted by Gold Coast Bulletin readers, Dr Riaan Jeffrey from Capri Medical Centre in Surfers Paradise was named the best local GP in the city.
Dr Jeffrey started his career as a doctor in 1992 and began working at Capri Medical Centre in 2015, specialising in children’s health and minor surgical and cosmetic procedures.
He specialises in upper blepharoplasty surgery, a procedure which removes excess eyelid skin, and is also known for cosmetic injectables and skin rejuvenation treatments.
He also specialises in children’s health.
9. Paula Duffy – Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Patient Flow and Access, Public Health and Covid-19 Response
At the helm of the health service’s logistical Covid response, Ms Duffy has been quietly toiling behind the scenes setting up the Gold Coast’s mass vaccination hubs, ensuring staff were able to operate it and keeping GCH staff updated on future plans once the Covid wave hits the city.
She’s currently an Associate Fellow at the Australasian College of Health Service Management and is an active member on more than 20 internal committees.
8. Dr Tanya Unni – Amtan Medical Founder/Director
Dr Tanya Unni has dedicated health care services to the communities of the Gold Coast.
She initiated the idea of setting up a drive-through vaccine centre in Pimpama which became the first in Queensland.
Dr Unni, the recipient of ‘Australian Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Health and Medicine” believes in the growth of dedicated health care services to the communities.
She’s also been honoured with several awards like the 2020 ‘Ausmumpreneur’ Award, ‘Iconic Woman Award’ by Women Economic Forum, ’Entrepreneur of the year’, and ‘Global Entrepreneur’ Award by the Indo American Press Club, Houston, USA.
7. Dr Michael Lindley-Jones – Tweed Hospital ICU Director/Organ and Tissue Donation NSW Director
Already extremely busy as a trauma specialist, Dr Lindley-Jones also works hard to increase awareness around organ donation, something he says is facilitated in a respectful and compassionate manner. With around five organ donors in the Tweed Hospital in 2021, the doctor is working to encourage more families to make the decision, saying one donation can help up to 10 people.
6. Dr Nemat Alsaba – Emergency Physician at the Gold Coast University Hospital
Dr Alsaba, who works at the Gold Coast University Hospital and John Flynn Private Hospital, is also an Assistant Professor in Medical Education and Simulation at Bond University.
Through her work she aims to improve geriatric patient care across all health sectors including undergraduate and postgraduate training. She’s also chairs many panel sessions, a recent one discussed head injury in aged care facilities to shed light on some of the issues and misconceptions associated with that presentation.
5. Dr Donald Angstetra – Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Gold Coast Private Hospital
Through his work at Women’s Health Centre and Gold Coast Private Hospital, Dr Angstetra’s is passionate about providing better care for women with endometriosis. His experience in advanced gynaecological laparoscopic surgery has led him into roles as the training-site director of the Australian Gynaecological Endoscopy Society and as a training supervisor for The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologist (RANZCOG) training program. He’s also been appointed as an honorary Associate Professor at Bond University.
4. Dr Sonu Haikerwal – Haan Health and Upper Coomera Respiratory Clinic owner
For the second consecutive year, Dr Haikerwal has been at the coalface of the community response to Covid, by offering to set up and operate the Covid respiratory clinic alongside her GP proactive. Having lost family members in India to Covid, Dr Haikerwal takes a no-nonsense approach to vaccination, spending time education patients who are hesitant. The former head of the Gold Coast Medical Association also mentors young doctors.
3. Dr Kee Ong – Senior Monash IVF Specialist
One of the sharpest minds in reproductive medicine and one of the most prolific baby makers in the country, Dr Ong has helped make more than 3000 babies during his career. The fertility expert has spent the past 13 years partnering with assisted reproduction pioneers, Monash IVF, helping thousands of women and couples to conceive.
It’s a partnership that’s seen the development of the city’s first all-encompassing fertility treatment centre in Southport where patients access consultation and early fertility treatment through to surgical procedures, IVF and allied health in one location.
2. Dr Kat McLean – General Practice Gold Coast chairwoman
Now working at Kalwun Health Service, in indigenous health, Dr McLean advocates for Gold Coast GPs, who have taken on the lion’s share of the Covid vaccination program. She also speaks out about how important fresh air and ventilation is in regards to stopping the threat of Covid. She’s also been working tirelessly at federal government funded respiratory clinics vaccinating residents.
1. Dr John Gerrard – Queensland’s chief health officer
The former director of infectious diseases at the Gold Coast University Hospital rose to become the state’s top health bureaucrat in November following the departure of Dr Jeanette Young.
In 2003 the international threat of SARS highlighted to Dr Gerrard the deficiencies in existing hospitals when it came to the risk of airborne infectious diseases.
This led him to help design the new GCUH so it could safely manage a pandemic such as Covid.
Dr Gerrard managed Queensland’s first cases of Covid when three families travelled from Wuhan, China in January 2020.
Shortly after, he travelled to Tokyo as part of a mission to assist Japanese authorities in containing the outbreak of Covid.
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