The University of Waikato's plan to remove ethnicity as a priority factor in admissions to New Zealand's newest medical school has drawn sharp criticism from doctors' groups, who call the move regressive and harmful to Māori health outcomes.
The school, set to welcome its first cohort in 2028, confirmed this week that its selection process remains under review, with a final decision on criteria due next year, according to RNZ.
What the Waikato proposal changes
Pro vice-chancellor of health Professor Jo Lane said the school's focus is producing doctors committed to primary care in regional and rural areas. Under the proposed model, applicants would no longer be considered through separate admission pathways. Instead, a single pathway would award points across overlapping priorities, including a stated commitment to Māori health.
The University of Waikato has confirmed that this competence-based approach may replace ethnicity as a criterion, as reported by New Zealand Doctor. The university says the disagreement that led to the resignation of the medical school's academic lead, Dr Rawiri Keenan, was not about whether Māori students would be admitted in substantial numbers, but about how they would be selected.
Doctors call the plan 'offensive to Māori'
General Practitioners Aotearoa chair Dr Buzz Burrell did not mince words about the proposal.
It's both backwards and naive and we were heard that what they instead are going to do is to make sure that applicants are committed to Māori health, that should be a given, he said. That should be a basic requirement of every doctor working in New Zealand. That's almost like being committed to breathing. It's a completely meaningless statement.
Burrell called the shift a retrograde and unhelpful step, and said it was almost offensive to Māori and to the health statistics themselves.
About 6 percent of the country's doctors are Māori, whereas about 18 percent of the population is Māori, he said.
Māori men die seven years younger than non-Māori men, and Māori women die six years younger than non-Māori women, figures that align with reporting from Croakey Health Media on persistent Māori health inequities. Burrell said it is important that Māori people have Māori doctors.
Why representation in medicine matters
The dispute lands in the middle of a wider debate about equity in health workforce planning. Aotearoa has long struggled to train a medical workforce that reflects its population, and the country's two existing medical schools have built admissions policies designed to close that gap.
The University of Auckland said it runs its Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme because of the evidence it works, and that the scheme aligns with Australasian Medical Council accreditation standards.
University of Otago pro vice-chancellor of health sciences Associate Professor Megan Gibbons said Otago's policy promotes equity for students from underrepresented groups, including Māori, Pacific, rural, low socioeconomic and refugee communities, with an academically strong focus.
All students meet the same minimum academic standards to enter medicine and must meet and pass exactly the same academic requirements of the degree programme each year to progress and successfully graduate, she said.
Gibbons said the pathways do not lower standards or guarantee entry. They ensure that once standards are met, selection decisions reflect long-term workforce needs that the market and open competition have repeatedly failed to meet on their own. The policy has produced record numbers of Māori and Pasifika students entering health professional programmes, though significant under-representation remains in the workforce.
A political dimension ahead of the election
The controversy also touches the political sphere. The government's backing of a third medical school has been welcomed as an investment in regional health training, but critics warn that support may come with strings attached.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton said the good news about government support for a third medical school is not such good news if it puts checks and limits on the processes a medical school can run to ensure it reflects broader society.
Dalton said promoting access to entry means a wider cross section of people can access medical courses, while the standards required to complete them remain as high as ever. She said priority entry pathways have been gradually increasing the number of Māori and Pasifika doctors and dentists, and removing them is regressive.
She has written to the university to say the association is disturbed by the changes and by Dr Keenan's resignation, noting the school's other promising features, including its focus on rurality, graduate entry and community-based hospitals.
It's just really disappointing and frustrating that they're not taking current, good practice and best evidence to inform their admissions policy, Dalton said.
Health NZ declined to comment. The University of Waikato says a final decision on its selection criteria will be made next year, well before the first students arrive in 2028.