Megan Rees is the Head of Unit for Respiratory Medicine and Sleep Disorders at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and was RMH Deputy Medical Lead for COVID care 2021- 2022. She is a consultant physician in Respiratory, Sleep and General Medicine with an interest in Respiratory Infectious Diseases.

She completed her medical degree at the University of Melbourne, undertook general physician training at the Royal Free Hospital where she obtained her MRCP and DTM&H from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She returned to Australia in 2003 to compete her FRACP qualifications specialising in Respiratory Medicine and Sleep Disorders with training at the Royal Melbourne, Alfred and Western Hospitals.

To further her interest in tuberculosis Megan completed a PhD in microbiology and biochemistry at Monash University. Her project used a proteomic approach to identify and characterise proteins expressed on the surface of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and related bacteria, and won the 2015 CSL prize for best thesis submitted in the Microbiology Department. In 2014 she was the recipient of a VESKI fellowship and undertook a post-doctoral research project at McGill University in Canada investigating protein expression in tuberculosis. More recently Megan is the RMH lead for the Australian Bronchiectasis Registry, she is a co-investigator for the FORMAT study for M. abscessus treatments and is a member of the trial steering committee for the ASCOT trial for treatments for COVID 19.

As Head of Unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital she has established consultative and collaborative relationships with the co located Royal Women’s Hospital, supporting respiratory care for pregnancy women with severe asthma, bronchiectasis including cystic fibrosis and Interstitial Lung disease. In 2019 she received a Norman Beischer Medical Research Foundation Innovation for a project examining Sleep Apnoea in Pregnancy. Recent research work includes Co Investigator and Site Lead for 2024 MRFF Grant “Treatable Traits for Asthma in Pregnancy”.