Is it Getting Better? with Emma Wehipeihana (Espiner) and Jacinta Ruru
The striking debut memoir There’s A Cure For This by Emma Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) won her the best first book award for general non-fiction at the 2024 Ockham Awards. Funny, incisive and at times, heartbreaking, it also provides a fierce and gutsy perspective of joining the healthcare system as a Māori junior doctor.
Emma is joined by Jacinta Ruru, Aotearoa’s first Māori law professor and now Otago University’s inaugural deputy vice chancellor Māori for a wide-ranging discussion on reducing institutional barriers to Māori advancement.
This session is generously brought to you by the Mactodd Community Charitable Trust.
This event is eligible for the 5 for $95 ticket bundle. You can pre-purchase a copy of There is a Cure for This with your ticket at checkout and collect it at the event.
Speakers
Emma Wehipeihana
Dr. Emma Espiner (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and political commentator.
Her podcast on Māori health equity, Getting Better: A Year in the Life of a Māori Medical Student (RNZ/Bird of Paradise Productions) won the Voyager Best Narrative Podcast of the Year in 2021.
In 2020 she won the Opinion Writer of the Year at the Voyager media awards, and her work has featured at newsroom.co.nz, stuff.co.nz, the Guardian, the NZ Herald and in academic and literary journals and books.
Espiner lives in Auckland, where she works at Middlemore Hospital as a surgical registrar.
The memoir There’s a Cure for This is her first book.
Events
Jacinta Ruru
Distinguished Professor Jacinta Ruru (Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui) MNZM, FRSNZ, was appointed as the inaugural Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Māori in March 2024. Her research considers how state legal systems should reconcile with their Indigenous peoples, their laws and knowledges. Her work has advanced options including legal personality of the environment and creating a bijural legal education. Jacinta has been appointed to many working groups and other entities including the NZ Law Society, NZ Law Commission, Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Waitangi Tribunal to provide research informed advice. She is a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and law.
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