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Lynn McBain 2022 imageHead of Department

Lynn joined the Department in 1995 and since 2017 has the role of Head of Department. From 2022 she has taken on the role of Deputy Dean for the UOW campus.

She graduated from medical school at Dalhousie University in Canada and immigrated to New Zealand to work in General Practice in the late 1980's. She worked in general practice as a partner at Brooklyn Medical Centre for 32 years until early 2022 and continues to support rural colleagues as a locum.

She also applies her professional expertise as the Chair of Impairment Committees for the NZ Education Council and Convenor of Professional Conduct Committees for the NZ Medical Council. In 2011 she was awarded the honour of Distinguished Fellowship of the Royal NZ College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP).

Teaching activities

Undergraduate medical education

Lynn is the link person for external undergraduate enquires.

She led the introduction of the innovative interdepartmental 5th year primary health care teaching programme to assist students in gaining skills and confidence in genital examination. Lynn previously convened the 5th year teaching programme as well as the 4th year teaching programme and continues to actively teach across all three years of the ALM programme in Primary Health Care and General Practice.

Recognising that teaching is a rich area for research, Lynn has been involved in several education research projects. Components of her teaching that have resulted in research publications are consultation skills, chronic care management, palliative care and most recently the genital examination teaching programme. Ongoing educational development and research is in the area of oral health. At an Otago Medical School level she is the UOWHOD on the Medical Curriculum Committee (MCC) and part of the Palliative and End of Life Care (PEOLC) oversight group. She is also involved with faculty assessments across the clinical schools.

Postgraduate education

Lynn is co-convenor and tutor for the postgraduate paper GENA 710 Mental Health and Illness in Primary Care.

She is involved with supervision of masters' and PhD students, as well as regularly supervising summer student projects.

Lynn assists the Royal NZ College of GPs with teaching as well assessment of the GPEP Registrar training programme.

Research interests

Lynn has a range of research interests including medical education, quality in primary care and particularly health services research.

Current projects involve primary care prescribing, oral health in primary medical care, and understanding the primary care perspective in the roll-out of HPV testing as a cervical screening test.

Publications

Campbell, C., Morris, C., Dunlop, A., & McBain, L. (2025, November). Improving medicines safety of older New Zealanders on multiple medicines at hospital discharge. Verbal presentation at the Academic GP conference, Hamilton, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Te Whaiti, S., Rose, S. B., Innes, C., Bell, R., Tino, A., McBain, L., & Sykes, P. (2025). “Mana motuhake - I am in charge and have control over my body”: A cross-sectional survey describing Māori participants' experience with HPV primary screening in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Racial & Ethnic Health Disparities. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s40615-025-02725-x Journal - Research Article

McBain, L., Hitchings, E., Yang, B., & Smith, M. (2025). Filling a gap: Development and evaluation of an oral health clinical skills module for medical students. Proceedings of the Australian & New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE) Conference: Horizons: Embrace the Future. 59. Retrieved from https://www.anzahpe.org Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Cullen, J., Jayamaha, N., Childerhouse, P., & McBain, L. (2025). Assessing the applicability of the Model for Understanding Success in Quality (MUSIQ) for primary care: A multi-case mixed methods analysis. Journal of Primary Health Care. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1071/HC25021 Journal - Research Article

McBain, L., Bell, R., Innes, C., Te Whaiti, S., Tino, A., Sykes, P., & Rose, S. (2025). Experience of HPV primary screening utilising self-testing: A cross-sectional survey of 'Let's test for HPV' study participants in Aotearoa New Zealand. Proceedings of the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) 54th Annual Scientific Meeting. 122. Retrieved from https://sapc.ac.uk Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

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