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Maori doctors are being be urged to take a greater role in public life.
Maori doctors and medical students come together in Palmerston North over the next few days for their annual Hui-A-Tau & Scientific Conference.
Spokesperson Rawiri Jansen says on the table for discussion are the way Maori health is taught and Maori workforces developed, the identification of Maori health disparities and how the crown can be held accountable.
It will also look at the role of Maori doctors in wider public debates.
"Health is significantly contributed to, through housing or income, employment, training, cultural connectedness, all of those things are really significant contributions to health and thats at a personal level but also if we think about our whanau and our communities. We need to be active in that space. We need to be really exercising the opportunities that come up and testing the system to try and make the system reflect and respond to that reality for us," he says.
Dr Rawiri Jansen says of major significance is the fact the number of Maori medical students, just over 15 percent of the total, now matches the proportion of Maori in the wider population.
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