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A member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' Maori health working group says getting more Maori surgeons is an important part of improving healthcare for Maori.
Whangarei-based Maxine Ronald is also deputy chair of the college's indigenous health committee, which is sponsoring four Maori junior doctors to attend the college's Annual Scientific Congress in Brisbane this week.
She says the number of Maori surgeons is low, there were more than four good applicants for the Brisbane trip, which aims to support Maori junior doctors who have shown an interest in making surgery their career.
"The conference will provide them with the opportunity to go to an Aboriginal health clinic to see the kind of work people are doing in Australia, they get to have a breakfsst with members of the college including the president so they get to develop those networks to help their further careers, they get to go to the conferencce and attend sessions to learn about surgical issues and other issues and to learn how to present at an international conference so they get all this exposure to a surgical world they might otherwise have difficulty seeing themselves entering," Dr Ronald says.
Across the Tasman there are only two registered surgeons with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island whakapapa.
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