Carolyn Broderick

Carolyn Broderick is an Australian sport and exercise physician, who was the first female Australian Medical Director for an Australian Olympic team, and the Chief Medical Officer for Tennis Australia.

Early life
Broderick grew up in Caringbah, New South Wales, the daughter of a doctor and physiotherapist, Frank and Margot. She has twin older sisters, Elizabeth Broderick, a lawyer and former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Jane Latimer.

Career
Broderick has held an academic position at the University of New South Wales (Associate Professor) since 1994 and has published over 70 papers, including being a co-author on the Lancet series on Heat and Health. Research themes include developing evidence-based guidelines for physical activity in children. She co-authored the guidelines for return to sport in a COVID environment in 2020. She is a member of Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Panel and the National Sports Tribunal.

Broderick has been a staff specialist at the Sydney Children's Hospital, Westmead since 2002, one of two sport and exercise medicine physicians to hold a staff specialist position at an Australian public hospital.

Broderick was appointed as the Chief Medical Officer of Tennis Australia in 2017, also acting as the medical director for the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Broderick was appointed as the Chief Medical Officer for the Australian Olympic Team for the Paris Olympics in 2024, becoming the first female physician to be the medical lead for the Australian Olympic team. She was Deputy Medical Director for the Australian Olympic Team at the 2016 Rio Games, and was Team Physician at both the 2012 London and 2000 Sydney Games.

Controversies
The Australian Open – along with the US Open – are regularly subject to extreme heat conditions, and at times players and commentators are critical of decisions to continue play. Along with researcher Ollie Jay, Broderick has implemented evidence-based heat guidelines in recent years (Australian Open extreme heat policy) which provide objective decision-making about when to cease play.

In 2022, the Australian Open was the centre of a major controversy involving reigning champion Novak Djokovic, who was taken into quarantine and ultimately forbidden from entering Australian during the coronavirus pandemic for being unvaccinated. Tennis Australia had granted Djokovic a vaccine exemption for participation in the tournament, despite being unvaccinated, due to an expert panel of 3 independent specialists assessing that he met the criteria.