the story.
Roy Mariathas — mbbs fracgp
peacetime
family arrived as refugees from war-torn sri lanka. tamil minority in a new country, non-english speaking. started esl classes at age 5. followed appa's work across regional victoria before settling in sydney.
myocardial infarction
within a year of arrival, appa suffered a severe heart attack. diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and familial hypercholesterolemia. underwent triple coronary artery bypass graft surgery. despite good surgical care, never kicked a ball with him again.
physician philanthropy
a brilliant doctor, appa stopped practising medicine in australia. didn't stop doing medicine — found malnourished children in low-income nations, created vitamin and feeding programs, attached education where possible, and discharged them back to their lives. helped with fundraising efforts.
high school
graduated with a uai of 99.65. vice captain and src president. school captain at primary school before that.
med school
studied medicine at the university of western sydney (mbbs). awarded the vice chancellor's leadership scholarship. spent time at lismore rural clinical school.
early work
data entry clerk for a drinks distributor. waiter at an indian restaurant. student support officer at the university. supervisor at salsa's. early customer service foundations.
breast cancer
mid-forties, amma was diagnosed with breast cancer. radical mastectomy, then chemotherapy and radiotherapy. appa was out of work, amma on casual income, no income protection. worked through treatment — left chemo, got in the car, arrived at work, threw up, carried on. later pulled out of reconstructive surgery in the anaesthetic bay. trauma was too much. long-term scarring and chronic lymphoedema.
uganda
clinical placement in uganda during medical school. first taste of healthcare delivery in a resource-constrained setting.
internship + residency
pgy1, pgy2. medical, surgical and ed rotations.
cardiothoracics
career medical officer at a ramsay health care facility in the cardiothoracics department. frontline surgical care.
tragedy
grafts from appa's bypass had blocked up after 20 years. aortic valve stenosis. complications during quadruple bypass and aortic valve replacement. one of several patients who died under the care of a surgeon whose clinical privileges were subsequently revoked. systems failed. lacked the agency to act in time.
love
got married in the same year appa passed. grief and new beginnings, side by side.
gp training
started the registrar pathway. extended skills training in dermatology. worked as a medical educator, teaching the next generation of gps.
fracgp + covid
attained fellowship of the royal australian college of general practitioners. joined a new practice as the first doctor on site. built a panel of 1,000 patients in six to twelve months, held a two-week waitlist, earned 120 five-star google reviews. asked to scale the service model. told the system couldn't support it. the anger became fuel.
pastoring
became a lay pastor — community building, running services for about a year. when covid hit, hacked together a streaming rig from spare parts and streamed church services through lockdowns. worked full time as a gp during covid throughout.
auscep inaugural
accepted into the inaugural australian clinical entrepreneur program, funded by the federal government's medical research and future fund. the first formal bridge between clinical practice and entrepreneurship.
eucalyptus
telehealth and async text-based prescriber with a multidisciplinary team. went all in — ended up on a pilot ad for erectile dysfunction (to the delight of family and friends), created internal patient education content, advocated for the model of care, got featured on the eucalyptus blog, and provided clinical support to other gps. a year at this company changed the trajectory. eucalyptus was acquired in q1 of 2026 for $1.6bn.
reggie 1.0
made the leap to full time founder in august. built reggie health — ai workflow automation for chronic disease documentation. the technology worked. the clinicians liked it. integrations were table stakes but a barrier to entry. competitive headwinds hit when best practice struck a landmark deal with lyrebird health. reggie's product sat downstream of the scribe. pivoted.
brand
recognised as a linkedin top voice. organically grew the follower base by building in public and radical vulnerability. the brand opened doors. speaking circuit: digital health festival ('from scrubs to start ups'), burning gp summit ('part time creative lovers'), wild health summits, racgp podcast on ai and llms in general practice, talking healthtech podcast.
openai healthbench
the only australian physician selected to contribute to openai's healthbench — evaluating the accuracy and quality of model-generated health-related responses. contributed to advanced human data initiatives designed to improve the safety of ai models on health-related questions. also joined the openai forum.
reggie 2.0
voice ai starting at the reception layer. in three months, reggie had four design partners and a pipeline of 500 clinics through australia's largest primary care groups. locked in a reseller and had multiple channel partners reaching out. stretched three months of runway into two and a half years by finding a hacky gig doing contrast supervision in radiology practices, basically getting paid to have a remote office. made mistakes as a ceo. outpaced on product, time to value expanded, personal runway exhausted. not viable to continue — sorely disappointing when the live opportunities were so close. wound down.
consolidation
back in clinical work doing urgent care. steadying the family finances. making up for lost time with family, friends and professional network.