It’s a big week for Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tahu paediatrician Dr Te Aro Moxon – graduating from Oxford University having been awarded a scholarship allowing him to do his masters of science in global health and epidemiology, focusing on infectious and non-infectious diseases among world populations.
The graduation had been delayed due to Covid-19 – the same thing that presented a lot of challenges for Moxon during his studies.
Now with the world more open than before during those tough times, Moxon will head back to the UK tonight to “complete the task that I set out to achieve a couple of years back”.
It also comes full circle for Te Aro, bringing his mother Lady Tureiti Moxon and father Sir David Moxon as his support group – the latter of whom was also an Oxford graduate.
“I’m looking forward to the many catchups and checking out the areas that Dad used to visit when he was a student there many years ago,” Moxon says.
Having studied abroad has given Te Aro the opportunity for a “global view” – but with studies complete he’s back to work in Aotearoa “for the long haul”.
Using his masters to create better hauora Māori outcomes.
He’s been recognised for excellence in teaching and operationalising Māori health equity by Te Whatu Ora Health NZ last year, receiving the Te Tohu Hiranga award.
Explaining his vision for equity, Te Aro says, “Whenever I present child health at different conferences or teaching I show a number of graphs. It demonstrates significantly different health outcomes for tamariki Māori compared to non-Māori.
“For me what I’d love to be able to do in the future is to see those gaps continue to reduce, and then disappear so that when we don’t have the major differences in health outcomes by ethnicity in Aotearoa.
“It’s going to take a lot of effort at multiple levels but I definitely want to play my part in terms of drawing attention to inequities that we see.”
His graduation is on Saturday, March 4.
