A new crop of medical students
Another group of Year 5 students from the University of Auckland’s School of Medicine were welcomed into the Pu¯kawakawa programme at a po¯whiri in Whanga¯rei on Monday.
The programme, established by the university’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and Northland District Health Board in 2007 to offer students the opportunity to gain experience in regional and rural health, has now inspired similar programmes in the Bay of Plenty and Taranaki.
While in Northland they will spend most of their time at Whanga¯rei Hospital, but will also work in integrative care at Dargaville, Kaitaia or Rawene.
Leading figures from the faculty were at the welcome, including the Head of the School of Medicine, Professor Alan Merry, who said the pioneering programme was one of the jewels in faculty’s crown. Places were hugely sought after, and valued by students.
“We are trying to train doctors for all of New Zealand, in particular, doctors who want to get engaged in public healthcare because there’s a huge need. That is our objective,” he said.
Professor John Fraser, Dean of Medicine and Health Sciences said the university was extremely proud of what it had achieved with Northland DHB.
“The purpose of Pu¯kawakawa is to ensure our graduates experience medicine at the very coalface of New Zealand, and Northland is that coalface,” he said.
Half the house surgeons currently working at Whanga¯rei Hospital, or who were trainee interns in Northland, had been through the programme. It was so popular among medical students that it was oversubscribed three-fold, and all who had taken part spoke of the experience as transformational.
DHB chair Sally Macauley encouraged the students to make the most of their time in Northland by getting out fishing, diving, experiencing the cycle trail, visiting Waitangi and learning about Nga¯puhi culture.
Each student pledged a year of their career to Northland, and the board hoped they would learn from their patients, and retain the art of communication, as doctor/patient interaction was the heart and art of medicine.
Chief
executive Dr Nick Chamberlain urged them not to fear failure, but embrace it and learn from mistakes.
“If you don’t fail you’re not going to learn. We put guard rails around failure, so there’s a backstop around you. I’ve learnt much more from my failures than all the successes I’ve had,” he said. The students were coming to a DHB that provided very good care in a region whose biggest challenge was inequity caused by poverty.
“This is going to be a big learning experience, and I challenge you to think differently, act differently, look at what you’re seeing and learn from it. If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we get what we’ve always got,” he said.
Professor Papaarangi Reid, tumuaki [head] and Head of Department of Ma¯ori Health at the faculty, also encouraged the students to get grips with the Treaty of Waitangi and what it meant for New Zealanders, and in practice.
“Engage in key social issues like poverty and geographic barriers to access in health services. Become political advocates for people who are marginalised by such things in your future careers,” she said.
As a Northlander, she was particularly committed to ensuring that students from the North could go back to where they were from and engage with their marae and hapu¯.
The majority of
the
24 students in the 2019 Pu¯kawakawa intake had some affiliations with Northland, including former Kaitaia College student Anaru Williams.
“After six years of study, it’ll be nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and work with the rural GPs, who are very skilful,” he said.
Wellington trainee intern Malachi Ropata and Year 5 student Israel Read-Eden, from Hawke’s Bay, had prepared for their year in Northland by focusing on their te reo. Malachi said he aspired to working in Northland, focusing on Ma¯ori health, while Israel was looking forward to spending her first months at Whanga¯rei, before her placement at Ra¯wene.