How to drive doctors out of NZ

Dr David Smylie writes for the FSU:

I’ve practised medicine in Britain, Australia, the US and New Zealand, including two years providing care to Aboriginal Australians in the Outback. In 2022, I was a senior partner at Cambridge Medical Centre in the Waikato. I had a blemish-free record.

That November, a sales rep from a nutrition company emailed me and other health professionals an invitation to a sponsored education evening. Her email opened “Ate Marie Everyone“. She meant “ata mārie,” meaning “good morning.”

I’m a Scot with a dry sense of humour, and I couldn’t resist the typo. I replied the moment I read it:

He joked that he hoped she hasn’t really eaten Marie, and that it would be good to communicate in a language not understood by 98.5% of the population. He also expressed relief she had not included her preferred pronouns.

Dr Smylie notes:

Was it wise? No, and I wish I hadn’t sent it. It was a hasty, knee-jerk reaction to the language in her email, not a calculated attack on her. It was also private: it went to her alone, and none of the other invitees were copied in. And she was a sales rep, not a patient or a colleague. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and it never crossed my mind that I might hear from the Medical Council over it.

Alas this is not the Medical Council of old that was concerned about clinical competence. Now their criteria is woke compliance.

In September 2023, the Committee delivered its verdict. My comments were “objectively racist, offensive, and insensitive“. Whether I’d meant any harm was “of little consequence“. My four sentences even had “the potential to contribute to current health inequities“. The three courses I’d done unprompted were only “the beginning of your journey“, and I lacked “insight“.

This reminds me of the old Soviet Union trials for being insufficiently committed to Marxism.

The committee’s remedy was “counselling“. In practice, that meant what I’d call twelve months of reprogramming. The Council called it an “Educational Programme“. I had to see a Council-approved supervisor every month, and the supervisor reported on me to the Council every month.

I suspect if you totally stuff up a diagnosis, you don’t need to have a monthly report on you. But if you have the wrong view on te reo or pronouns, you must be supervised.

At the end I was to write two essays: 500 words reflecting on my email, and 1,000 on structural racism in New Zealand health care. 

George Orwell could turn this into a novel!

So, I left. I’m now practising overseas. I’m told I might be allowed to work in New Zealand again if I write them. Clearly, that is not going to happen.

Those two years were a living nightmare. I lost more than 10kg and a great many nights’ sleep, over something a sensible regulator would have settled with a quiet word.

Exactly. Any sane regulator would just say “Hey it’s silly to wind someone up like that”. But the Medical Council wasted God knows how much money on treating it like a hanging offence.

At a time when Health NZ are reporting severe staffing shortages, and are looking to bring in staff from overseas, I have to be blunt: based on my experience, I would not advise any health professional to work in New Zealand until the regulators get back to their core purposes.

I know so many professionals who say Australia looks attractive because the regulators there are not as insane as in NZ.