Dr Rachelle Martin

Research

I aim to develop equitable health-optimising policies and programmes, enabling people who experience disability to live well across their lifespan. I also aim to conduct research that supports the development of empowering mana-enhancing health services - acknowledging and building on people’s capabilities and strengths.

I optimise research real-world impact by ensuring that new evidence and knowledge is directly translated into improved ways of working – often within the process of research itself. I am committed to participatory methods that listen to and enhance the voices of disabled people, ensuring their perspectives influence health-related policy, programme and service delivery decisions, and work in partnership with Māori researchers to ensure kaupapa Māori responsiveness.

I often use realist review, research or evaluation methods to unpack the ‘black box’ of complex health programmes by developing a theoretically based understanding of ‘what works for who, in which contexts, to what extent, and how?’. As such, my research supports a nuanced understanding of how people are able to (or not) respond to intervention resources and/or programme mechanisms, and how different contexts (i.e. personal, environmental and societal) may impact on equitable health outcomes.

Additional details

Teaching

I am passionate about medical education.

As a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Medicine at the Southland Campus of the Otago Medical School, I host and teach medical students and trainee interns during their Medicine attachments at Southland Hospital.

I believe that a firm generalist foundation to clinical practice is important for all doctors, regardless of specialty. My teaching is focused on helping students to acquire clinical knowledge and skills that will aid them in developing this core of generalist clinical acumen.

I am an examiner for the medical school final examinations.

I was awarded the 2018 Otago Medical School Invercargill Campus Senior Medical Officer Award for Excellence in Teaching, and a 2019 award for teaching from the Department of Medicine.

I am closely involved in the training of resident doctors. As Director of Physician Education, I supervise physician trainees undertaking their RACP specialist training at Southland Hospital. I am an RACP clinical examiner.

I have presented an invited talk at the 2018 Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand (IMSANZ) scientific conference.

Clinical commitments

I am a Consultant General and Renal Physician, practising full-time in the public health system, at Southland Hospital, since 2017.

I was born and raised in Palmerston North. I graduated from Otago Medical School in 2006, with an MB ChB with Distinction, and prizes and distinctions in Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics and Psychiatry. I also completed a Bachelor of Medical Science with First Class Honours research degree. I undertook my specialist training throughout New Zealand, including at Dunedin, Hawke’s Bay, Waikato, Middlemore and Auckland City Hospitals. I completed my Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in January 2017, specialising in both General Medicine and Renal Medicine.

As a General Physician, I have a broad and in-depth knowledge and experience of all areas of Internal Medicine, and manage a full spectrum of medical problems in my patients. I enjoy the challenge of the broad, complex, undifferentiated nature of secondary hospital General Medicine. I take a holistic approach to my work, treating patients not as ‘diseases’ or ‘diagnoses’, but as fellow human beings, for whom I am privileged to care.

As a Renal Physician, I provide specialist inpatient and outpatient care to patients with kidney problems.

Publications