Physios schooled docs on this one
It’s a story that deserved more recognition, more celebration. It came and went without much ado. Few it seems appreciated the significance of Wintec’s achievement when it won the right to open a new physiotherapy school, the first new physio academic facility to be established in 45 years.
It’s an academic achievement in a medical field that re-establishes academic credibility for Wintec. After witty sex toy headlines ‘‘Wintec spends $28,900 on sex-doll probe’’ and a backdrop of Wintec mismanagement and governance dysfunction good news was badly needed.
Questions remain unanswered about the overseas activities of chief executive Mark Flowers, who remains on leave while a second review into his activities remains to be completed.
Wintec’s reputation has been shattered. Not even the good news of the new medical faculty could cut through the mess. It should have captured the imagination of the city.
It didn’t.
Last year the city was abuzz with the prospect of a new medical school at the University of Waikato. It was a marketing con job.
History suggests we should see it now for what it was; a deeply flawed vanity project driven by disgraced DHB CEO Nigel Murray alongside an academic ‘Hail Mary pass’ by the university to gain enrolments and research funding in a student market that is shrinking, leaving some institutions today on life support.
Murray had tried once before in Canada to pull off the same trick; build a medical school as a monument to his achievements. It too, didn’t get off the ground, with Canadian authorities being a bit more wary of the devil in the details of the idea.
Murray was CEO with the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia when he began ‘‘preliminary discussions’’ with officials at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia to launch a new medical school.
The Vancouver Sun reported on the proposal with Murray again stage managing his appearance as the entrepreneurial medical manager poster boy for the new medical school initiative.
‘‘There’s some urgency to health workplace planning because there is a real shortage of doctors and a medical school in this jurisdiction would be very complementary to that objective,’’ Murray said.
It all sounds very similar. Too familiar.
The concept was riddled with issues, no budget or plan was ever revealed outlining costs or how the new faculty was going to function in an academic environment with no medical resources, no medical staff, no medical academic culture, no medical history, no medical alumni, no government medical funding, no medical research facilities, no government mandate, all while partner institution Waikato District Health Board was losing its accreditation to teach junior doctors due to concerns over standards and safety.
The most naive comment made by anyone associated with the medical school belongs to former chairman Bob Simcock who claimed the establishment of the school was not about the money.
Simcock’s lack of business and academic acumen was revealing as it contradicted the claim of someone who knew what the school was really about – cash.
Nigel Murray knew where the money jar was and left no doubt what the school was really about: ‘‘Our Waikato Institute of Medicine and Health, which provides the framework for the medical school, will also attract research development funds and bring world-class staff to the Waikato.’’
Yep, it was about the money all right.
There was much to be concerned about with the proposed medical school, the lack of bonding on students was critical. When students owe significant debt to the IRD for student loans, the goodwill quickly goes out the door when graduates are faced with the prospect of a low paying rural GP practice in the rural sticks of New Zealand.
The lack of buy-in from the New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association and New Zealand Medical Students’ Association should also have raised alarm bells.
And so today Wintec shows how a new medical faculty should have been established all along, with quiet determination, academic focus and the buy-in of the established associations.
Wintec got it right. It has achieved a remarkable story of academic success with minimal fanfare.
It deserves recognition for the disciplined, well organised way it went about establishing its new medical faculty as opposed to the grandstanding of Nigel Murray and the University of Waikato throughout 2016/17.
Wintec director of Health and Social Practice, Dr Angela Beaton’s success in leading the development of the Wintec Physiotherapy School was acknowledged in New Zealand Doctors’ on line publication last month.
‘‘We are looking forward to continuing to work in partnership with our community and practice partners to deliver an innovative, new physiotherapy programme,’’ she said. Congratulations Dr Beaton. Wintec is the largest health and social practice education provider in the Midland region. It is something to celebrate when the (academic) underdog wins.
Wintec has given the University of Waikato a basic class in academic programme establishment and marketing 101; under promise and over deliver.
One lives in hope the University of Waikato has learned its lesson.
Wintec got it right. It has achieved a remarkable story of academic success with minimal fanfare.