The University of Otago has never seen so many Māori students studying to be doctors, new research from the New Zealand Medical Journal shows.
There are any number of ways this good news story can be negatively interpreted.
Why do Maori patients need Maori doctors?
How 'Maori' are they anyway?
Frankly my interest in the race and reverse discrimination debate is minimal.
However it happens, whatever it means, I'm happy to note and broadcast this development.
Pro Vice Chancellor Peter Crampton said the increase in Māori and Pacific students was a positive step in ensuring health workers in the future better reflect the people of New Zealand.
"This is the vision: that when you and I engage with the healthcare system, wherever we may engage, it might be with our own doctor, or with the nurse or with the hospital or with the physiotherapist, or the pharmacist, that there is every likelihood we would be engaging with a Māori health professional.
"We want that to be normal, and in the past that has not been normal."
2 comments:
Lindsay, If my memory serves me well and I'm happy to be corrected, I remember 30 years ago it was decided to encourage Maori and or Pacific Islanders to study medicine, by allowing them to have lower entry grades into medical school than other students.
Are we now seeing positive results for this exercise in racial discrimination?
The quotas are older than that:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3552096
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