49 | Dr. Curtis Walker on MCNZ, Te ORA & renal medicine

Doctor NOS

Dr. Curtis Walker was elected to Council in 2015. He was elected Chair in February 2019. Ko Whakatōhea rāua ko Ngāti Porou ngā iwi. Formerly a veterinarian, Dr Walker retrained in human medicine and qualified from Auckland in 2007. He started work as a House Officer at Waikato hospital and commenced internal medicine training there before moving to Palmerston North and Wellington to complete his Fellowship in nephrology (Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians) in 2015.

During his time as a resident doctor, he was President of the New Zealand Resident Doctors Association (NZRDA) for 5 years, and currently serves on the board of the Māori Medical Practitioners Association (Te ORA). These roles reflect the strong commitment that Dr Walker has to improving health outcomes for Māori and to supporting doctors during the long and challenging years spent in specialist training.

He commenced work as a renal and general physician in 2015 at MidCentral DHB and loves living in Palmerston North with his wife and two young children.

In this episode, we discuss his journey from veterinary medicine, to human medicine, his presidency in the NZRDA, his Chairmanship in MCNZ and his work with Te ORA. We unpack his passion to serve Māori communities, cultural safety in the workplace, attrition rates of Māori doctors, and of course, his work as a renal and general physician.
As always, if you have any feedback or queries, or if you would like to get in touch with the speaker, feel free to get in touch at [e-mail].

Audio credit:
Bliss by Luke Bergs https://soundcloud.com/bergscloud
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/33DJFs9
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/e9aXhBQDT9Y

Support the show

As always, if you have any feedback or queries, or if you would like to get in touch with the speaker, feel free to get in touch at [e-mail].

Audio credit:
Bliss by Luke Bergs https://soundcloud.com/bergscloud
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/33DJFs9
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/e9aXhBQDT9Y

Chapters

1. Curtis Walker (00:00:00)

2. Starting in vet medicine (00:03:17)

3. Finding general medicine & renal medicine (00:07:01)

4. Serving Maori patients (00:08:52)

5. Cultural safety from MCNZ (00:12:28)

6. The work of MCNZ (00:14:08)

7. Te ORA (00:16:53)

8. Maori doctors and attrition rates (00:17:39)

9. Interim Health New Zealand/Waka Hauora (00:25:02)

10. Serving Maori as Maori (00:27:04)

11. Presidency in NZRDA (00:29:08)

12. Day-to-day routine in renal and general medicine (00:33:48)

13. Work-life balance (00:39:04)

14. Wisdom for trainees (00:40:33)