From Mob kid to medical student
A young Ma¯ ori medical student used his family’s gang connections for a ground-breaking new study on the health of the Mongrel Mob.
Dozens of Mongrel Mob members, affiliates and extended family were assessed on their liver’s health by University of Otago researchers.
Among them was Jordan Tewhaiti-Smith, now a fifth-year medical student based in Wellington, who used his family connections to organise the study.
His father and three of his uncles were Mongrel Mob members, and his connections paved the way for the research, published in the Royal Society Open Science.
The study, which included 52 Mongrel Mob Notorious gang members in Dunedin, Lower Hutt and Turangi, found the largest New Zealand gang’s high incarceration rate, common intravenous drug use and uncertified tattooing put them at a higher risk of contracting hepatitis C.
‘‘Nothing surprised me, because I grew up with this, but some of the rest of the team expressed surprise at how welcomed they were,’’ TewhaitiSmith told Stuff.
He said his family moved from Martinborough to Dunedin when he was aged 9 to be closer to Otago University. ‘‘I was raised quite well by my parents and they put us first. It wasn’t forced on me but it was expected that I take it [education] seriously.’’
His interest in medicine grew from his exposure to hospitals as a child, he said.
His grandparents were ‘‘always quite sick’’ and two of his younger sisters – now in primary school – spent about five months in a neonatal intensive care unit (Nicu).
‘‘The team in the Nicu were just so cool. That’s what persuaded me to do it, because they . . . put us at ease.’’
While the study was ‘‘challenging’’ to help organise, that was only because of logistics rather than any trouble from the gang members, Tewhaiti-Smith said.
‘‘It is quite crazy because this research is the first of its kind, that we know.’’
Despite some initial hesitancy by participants, the health checks ended up feeling ‘‘normal and natural’’ for all parties involved.
Associate professor Dr Michael Schultz, the head of the university’s department of medicine, said the research provided a unique opportunity to study a group considered to be hard to reach and marginalised.
While no cases of hepatitis C were found, two carriers of hepatitis B were identified.
Schultz, of Germany, said he was ‘‘greatly apprehensive’’ before beginning the research. ‘‘What I knew about the Mongrel Mob was what everyone knows, drugs, violence and shooting – these kind of things.’’
Meeting Tewhaiti-Smith had changed that perspective. ‘‘He really opened the door.’’
The only difference in the research was having to arrange a neutral spot to conduct the study, or ‘‘on their turf’’.
‘‘That was the only condition.’’