A weight off her mind
By Cameron Cooper. Dr Sharmila Sambandam (foreground) and her husband Elango worked closely with Avant Finance to finance the new practice (Photography: Emily Hanna).
Dr Sharmila Sambandam’s decision to open her own medical practice did not arrive as a sudden leap, but as a slow accumulation of conviction. Years of working within large, well-run clinics had given her clinical depth and professional confidence. Yet over time, she began to question what a practice would look like if the care it offered was built entirely around the person and not the disease.
That answer now sits at the heart of Olika Medical Centre, a women’s health and weight management clinic that she opened in early February 2026. It is a significant step for a doctor who has spent more than a decade in general practice. However, she has spent the past four years increasingly immersed in bariatric medicine, and much longer quietly shaping a philosophy of care that sees weight, hormones, mental health and prevention as inseparable.
“I’ve been a GP in training and a GP for the last 10-plus years,” Dr Sambandam says. “My initial interest was heavily based on women’s health and preventative health, and whenever I was looking at a condition, it always led back to weight. Weight loss would help the diabetes, the blood pressure, the knee pain—everything came back to that.”
Long before weight management gained broader clinical recognition, she was already treating it as a chronic condition. “I’ve been doing this for about a decade now,” she says. “But in recent times, with the research and innovation in medications, it’s really taken on a different role as a specialty.”
Her growing expertise did not come at the expense of generalism. Working within a corporate, multi-GP clinic for seven years, she valued the collegiality and support it offered. “It’s a very supportive environment and everyone’s really lovely,” she says. “But there can be limitations when you’re trying to set up your own style of practice.”
It's a bold move, but the main reason for starting this clinic is not so much as a business move. It's more about my passion.
"To adapt or to create?
That tension between working within a system and wanting to reshape it is familiar to many GPs. For Dr Sambandam, the answer was not to leave general practice behind, but to re-imagine its structure. The newly opened Olika Medical Centre is designed as a multidisciplinary clinic with capacity for up to 10 GPs, alongside allied health professionals including exercise physiologists, dietitians, pelvic pain physiotherapists and psychologists. Visiting specialists, particularly gynaecologists, are planned as the clinic grows.
“I wanted to set it up as a multidisciplinary clinic,” she says. “I knew who was good in the field and wanted to work with them. It’s about treating the person, not just the disease.”
The scale of the clinic was a deliberate choice. And a daunting one. Starting smaller would have been easier but, ultimately, limiting. “We realised that the growth potential wouldn’t be there,” Dr Sambandam says. “If we wanted to offer more services and meet the needs of the community, we had to make sure we had the capacity to grow.”
The decision was driven less by commercial ambition than by clinical frustration. “The main reason for starting this clinic is not so much as a business move,” she says. “It was more about passion. There are a number of people who are not able to get the help that they need, and that’s been the main driving force.”
That clarity of purpose did not erase the fear. “It is a bold move,” she says. “We’ve lost sleep over this. But we were just trying to get through to the next step, and the next step.”
Helping hands
Throughout the process, Dr Sambandam has been supported by her husband, Elango, whose professional background is in government IT. While she led the clinical vision, Elango took on the operational heavy lifting, from technology and logistics to finance and contracts.
“I don’t think I would’ve been able to do this without him being involved,” Dr Sambandam says. “He’s quietly stayed in the background, but he’s the one who turns up to work, works long days, comes home and keeps going. I’ve hardly spoken to anyone organising this - he’s been doing everything on the business side.”
Elango describes the project as both exhilarating and overwhelming. “Setting up a practice of this scale is a big undertaking,” he says. “There are so many factors involved—finance, builders, technology, contracts—it’s a list of a million things, and you don’t pick them up in one day.”
His IT experience shaped many of the clinic’s design decisions. Automated check-in kiosks, modern practice software and efficient workflows were prioritised from the outset. “It’s about making it easy for patients and for doctors,” he says. “Doctors should have the tools and support they need to do their work properly, so we can cultivate a happy environment.”
That emphasis on the working environment is not incidental. Dr Sambandam is clear about the type of clinicians she wants to attract. “It’s not six-minute medicine,” she says. “I’m picking people who are already doing comprehensive care. We’re training doctors as well, making sure everyone is across current guidelines, and supporting them properly.”
The clinic’s approach to referrals reflects the same ethos. Rather than absorbing patients indefinitely, Olika Medical Centre operates as a complementary service. “We manage the weight side of things, and then they go back to their regular GP,” she says. “We don’t take patients and keep them. Even if we could, always refer them back.”
Behind the scenes, the financial structure of the practice has been as carefully considered as its clinical model. Rather than leasing, Dr Sambandam and Elango chose to build and own their premises, using a self-managed super fund structure. For them, navigating that complexity without specialist support would have been near impossible.
“There are accountants, lawyers, tax considerations—it’s a complex area,” he says. Early discussions with banks provided little joy, but talks with Avant Finance—a medical finance specialist with which Dr Sambandam has dealt since her university days—proved a turning point. Avant Finance Relationship Director Daniel Pike has worked with the Sambandams for the best part of 12 months to develop a sustainable financial plan.
One of the key elements of the Sambandams’ deal with Avant Finance was a practice drawdown loan, through which no repayments were required for up to 12 months. The other big advantage is that Dr Sambandam has been able to use her self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) for part of the funding of the property purchase with the help of Avant Finance.
Elango praises Avant Finance and Daniel for the “seamless service” they provided during the loan negotiations and the fitout, which was done by respected medical and dental fitout specialist Perfect Practice. “Daniel has always been there for us when we need him,” Elango says.
A place for everyone
As the construction neared completion, the emotional reality of ownership began to land. “Depending on the day you asked me, I was either excited or nervous,” Dr Sambandam says. “It was a mix of all of it.”
Now being able to walk through the newly completed and opened space has made it tangible. “I love good aesthetics,” she says. “It was never going to be a boring space. We wanted it to feel comforting and welcoming—a healing space for patients and staff.”
For Dr Sambandam, the practice represents more than a milestone; it is a statement about how general practice can evolve when given space, structure and intent.
“It has been stressful,” she says honestly. “But my patients give me great confidence. They’re excited. They’re enjoying the new space.”
In that anticipation lies the reward. Not just of ownership, but of building something that reflects a deeply held belief that thoughtful, holistic care deserves a place to grow
After working with Sharmila and Elango Sambandam for almost a year to bring Olika Medical Centre to life, Avant Finance’s Daniel Pike is confident the venture will be a success. His confidence comes from Dr Sharmila Sambandam’s strong track record in delivering women’s health and weight management services, as well as the couple’s well-developed business strategy. “At Avant Finance, we can see their end goal and what they’re trying to achieve,” says Pike. “With medical financing, it’s not always just about dollars and cents and whether a person can afford it. It’s also about having the right plan and knowing whether they can actually execute what they’re looking to do.” Daniel explains that his goal is always to take the stress out of the process for clients, whether that means providing referrals or acting as a go-between on matters such as legal protections and fitouts. He adds that Dr Sambandam’s “fairly ambitious plan” for Olika Medical Centre may not have been supported by lenders without specialist medical finance expertise. He is also pleased that Avant Finance was able to arrange funding that allowed the property to be purchased through a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF). “There are only about five lenders that offer SMSF lending for commercial properties,” he says. “But Avant Finance has been doing SMSF lending for a number of years, and it’s very popular among doctors.”
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