The new Dean of the Dunedin School of Medicine says recent controversy around the university’s selection criteria has been illuminating.
Professor Joanne Baxter sat down with Q+A with Jack Tame to explain her journey to leadership of a top medical school.
“What I believed to be an exceptionally good thing that ought to be understandable and considered quite appropriate for us as a society was not thought of in the same way by a number of people or some people. So I learnt not to get complacent.”
She also explored the recent controversy around admissions to medical school for people from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds.
Baxter told Tame that it’s been very easy for people to underestimate another’s potential.
“They look at background factors and make an assumption about what your destiny is or ought to be," said Baxter.
"And yet, I see so many amazing young people who have incredible potential, but it's not shown up in the fact that they've been to the best schools or the flashest school or had the backgrounds that have had them on trajectories into university."
"Many of them come with stories of similar stories – someone really noticed their potential or they happened to have in their school an approach to actually really working with students.”
She’d like to see a medical workforce that more accurately reflects the population it is caring for.
“We have to remember that only between 2% and 5% of most of our health professionals in New Zealand, registered health professionals, are Māori, and medicine has only just gone clocked over 4% of doctors in New Zealand being Māori."
"So even with increases to the point where we're getting about 20% of our students being Māori, and Auckland similar, we're still not touching the sides.”
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