Susanna Every-Palmer

Susanna Every-Palmer is a New Zealand academic and forensic psychiatrist, and is a full professor at the University of Otago, specialising in mental health and achieving better outcomes for people with schizophrenia.

Academic career
Every-Palmer has a master's degree in evidence-based medicine from the University of Oxford. In 2008 she was awarded RANZCP Fellowship and gained an Advanced Certificate in Forensic Psychiatry two years later. In 2019 Every-Palmer completed a PhD titled Clozapine and the gastrointestinal tract at the University of Otago, having been awarded the University of Otago PhD Research Prize for Clinical Research in 2018. Every-Palmer is on the faculty of the University of Otago, and rose to full professor in 2023. As of 2024, Every-Palmer is the Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at Otago.

Every-Palmer has been Deputy Director of Mental Health at the Ministry of Health and Director of the Central Regional Forensic Services. As of 2024 she chairs the New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and is a Board Member of both the Council of Medical Colleges and Pacific Rim College of Psychiatry.

Every-Palmer's research focuses on evidence-based mental health care. She led research that showed better immediate and longer-term outcomes for emergency mental health call-outs when co-response models were used, that is, when police and ambulance responders were accompanied by mental health services. She has also published on how the mental health of politicians is affected by harassment. In 2021, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care held an 11-day hearing on the abuse of children that occurred at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit. Together with Oliver Sutherland, who was one of the first whistleblowers of the abuse, Every-Palmer has written about the implications for modern psychiatry arising out of the Commission's findings.