Jane Gunn

Professor Jane Gunn is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences and inaugural Chair of Primary Care Research. Her research interests include depression in primary care, study design, and analysis within the primary care setting. Jane is particularly interested in randomised controlled trials, complex interventions, and combining quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Professor Gunn has worked as an Academic GP since 1991 and has been heavily involved in research, teaching and curriculum development. Her PhD investigated the role of general practice in the provision of care to mothers and babies in the year after birth and included the analysis of routinely collected Health Insurance Commission data, a State-wide survey of GPs and a randomised controlled trial of an early postnatal visit.

She has a special interest in combining quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to fully explore the questions that face the primary health care setting.

She has led the Diagnosis, Management and Outcomes of Depression in Primary Care (diamond) study since 2003: a longitudinal study aimed at developing models of care to transform primary mental health care, focusing on depression and multimorbidity. This study has twice been included in the NHMRC ‘Ten of the Best’ collection.

Jane was instrumental in guiding the University of Melbourne through the COVID-19 pandemic in her role as the Chief Public Health Adviser on the University leadership team for the pandemic response. Jane is committed to good governance, fostering collaborative research, mentoring the next generation, and catalysing innovation and continues to champion the value of ‘Generalism’ and the Generalist approach, particularly regarding mental health care.