Who are your students

First and foremost, we are interprofessional focused in our teaching and our research, and that means interprofessional in the widest sense of the word. So our students come from predominantly backgrounds in Allied Health. Also, a significant proportion of the students come from creative arts, to engineering, to business — who are interested in Rehabilitation, moving into perhaps policy work or advocacy, or sometimes a personal learning journey as well.

Studying with us is great because we’re such active researchers in the international space, what’s at the cutting edge of thinking in Rehabilitation. And we can, in some ways, have that advantage of being able to see beyond the horizon of what’s coming up next for the rehabilitation sector in New Zealand, and we bring that directly into our teaching and draw on that material all the time.

What are your students interested in

We all have an interest in equity, disability, and impairment, and ways to overcome that. We’re a diverse group — we’ve got physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and myself, I’m a doctor. But there’s no differentiating who we are as professionals as part of this team.

We find that a number of people get advancement within their own organisation as a result of doing our course, because they then become truly competent. They’re able not only to do their job, but to provide leadership for others because they understand the theoretical framework in which work rehabilitation is provided.

You can come into this and get a feel for what vocational rehabilitation is all about, and come out somebody who’s work-ready to go in and take up this job.

What do your students say

I love the fact that students come to us and get reinspired in their current practice and they start to think about what might be possible in the services that they work in. Students will often say, “I thought I always worked in a person-centred way,” “I thought the service that I worked in was holistic,” “I’ve been able to reimagine what’s possible.”

A lot of people are working already. The assignments that we do, the teaching that we do, is really related to real-world situations, and the students can take the learning and immediately apply it.

Students will often say in their feedback: “I feel more confident about sharing my knowledge. I feel better able to advocate for equitable access, experience, and outcomes. That I know what I can do in the future if I want to continue to learn.”

What does your course cover

We cover theory, we cover practice, we cover clinical reasoning, we cover contemporary influences on Rehabilitation, but also bigger picture things like teamwork and interprofessionality.

We deliberately have people from different professions, and we seek a student body that brings those different experiences. We deliberately use online distance teaching so that you can be wherever you are in Aotearoa New Zealand, and that does not stop you from doing postgraduate study with us.

What is the greatest thing about studying with RTRU

The greatest thing about studying with RTRU is that ability to be part of a learning community and form relationships, both with staff and with your classmates.

As a parent of a child with special needs, as a consumer of health services, I found out there was the power of health professionals and the health system in terms of making you feel empowered and supported. And also, I’ve had interactions and consultations that were very unhelpful.

The teachers who are part of RTRU are active researchers as well. Whatever teaching they do, they are leaders in their own area of teaching, and it’s research-informed.

If you had to pick one word that drives RTRU research, it’s curiosity — to not sort of take things as granted, and still strive towards: what can we do differently, and how can we do better?

We want you to pursue what’s of most interest to you.