This week we’re having a conversation with Dr. Emily Gill, a Family Physician practicing in rural New Zealand. Emily Gill, M.B.Ch.B., B.Med.Sci., is a 2017-18 New Zealand Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, a research fellowship awarded by The Commonwealth Fund. She is currently based at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital, affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, Boston.
“I work in a clinic in a community of 500 in this little pre-fab room and I can look up at the window and it’s a beautiful coastal scenery that sort of subtropical and we even have an active volcano in the Bay that passes out steam regularly that I can see from my clinic room. That’s pretty special!”
Back in New Zealand, she is a full-time, rural Family Physician in two rural practices in the Bay of Plenty of the North Island, where she focuses on the management of complex chronic conditions in high-needs populations and is an advocate for improved coordination of care through clinical governance activities. After completing her medical qualifications in 2003, Gill spent time as a rural hospital medicine trainee in New Zealand and volunteered with Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontiers) working on two projects in West Africa.
Gill’s research experience includes several summer internships, and she was the first recipient of year-long research degree in General Practice in New Zealand. She has published peer-reviewed articles on the management of diabetes in aged-care facilities and cardiovascular disease risk assessments in the community setting. She was also an active member of the New Zealand Doctors-in-Training-Council (2009-2012, Deputy Chair 2010).
Dr. Gill received her medical and research degrees from the University of Otago, and is a Fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practice.