Making a difference in medicine

Moving forward: Dawn Pasina is looking forward to working in the New Zealand health system  to continue to make a difference in the industry. 

By Robyn Downey

Cook Island-born peadiatrician Dawn Pasina has brought valuable skills from her beloved homeland to add to New Zealand’s wide mix of dedicated health professionals.

Dawn, a mother of three, now lives in New Zealand and is currently studying hard for her re-registration exams to work as a doctor here.

From teacher parents there were various ideas her father had of Dawn’s choice of career path, from lawyer to electrical engineer, she laughs.

But she decided to go into the medical field after an accident in her mid-teens which culminated in a referral to a surgeon, although she had spent her formative years in the company of doctors who were family friends, she doesn’t think this was the catalyst to her final decision.

“Making my decision for medicine probably came after I broke my arm, falling off a motorbike when I was 16.” 

She believes her injury needing specialist care opened up her curiosity about making people well.

Dawn gained her medical qualifications in Fiji, after gaining a World Health Organisation (WHO) sponsorship to study at Fiji National University (formerly known as the Fiji School of Medicine). 

She is most proud of having been able to make a significant contribution to healthcare in her home country.

“I am passionate about advocating for continuing to improve guidelines,” Dawn says.

This was also why she played a key role in reviving the Cook’s medical council.

“We did have a health reform in 2005 – 2006 which addressed a few things and built on our strengths.”

This all opened up a path to progress, although the down side saw some staff leave to find greener pastures, which had become a sad reality, she says.

Dawn sees an ever-growing need in childrens’ health mostly in the area of funding, generally. 

“My colleagues and I had been fighting for nearly a decade to make paediatrics seen as an area of real specialised care, because working with children is a whole different ball game altogether to adult health,” Dawn says. 

She sees her biggest achievements for childrens’ health having been; setting up an appointment-based clinic, getting in paediatric specialist visits from Starship Childrens’ Hospital in New Zealand as opposed to youngsters being seen by the adult visiting specialists, and getting a nurse for her department. 

She also sees a need for more parenting programmes back in her homeland.

“With struggling lives, sometimes the children get a bit forgotten,” she says. 

Dawn has a huge admiration for child psychologist Margaret Weston, who is key in the Triple P programme. (See side bar)

“We are very hopeful to get something going in the Cook Islands around that and Margaret continues to do amazing work. I hope to possibly do some training in that area early next year,” Dawn says.

“Interestingly, I heard on newstalk [recently] a police officer based in Mangere mentioned how children are not the ones in poverty.”

She says there are priority issues with some families generally and “our [some New Zealand] families are caught in a vicious cycle which they sometimes feel they can’t get out of. But how we address that is easier said than done”.

Dawn believes that because children are our future generations, things can only change with better teaching; be it in education, health, nutrition to name a few areas.

“I think focusing on families is the way to go to address our paediatric issues,” she says.

All this, the need for some life balance and yet looking for new challenges, led Dawn into considering the natural health industry. 

That was when she was blown away by the aspects of health science distributed by network marketing - New Zealand’s $232 million-per-year growth industry.

As a doctor, Dawn could see the benefits of a more preventative and holistic approach to health with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants all put together to assist the body to work at optimum levels.

“It was fate I believe, and when I learnt more about it from people involved in it already, there was no looking back for me.”

With her medical understanding and aspirations as well as now working with the natural health approach for herself in her down time, she is excited about the future.

“When I complete my re-registration, I will probably work as a gp and perhaps full naturopathy but I’m still undecided on that yet. I may take on some management and administration study to do with medicine to help our young doctors coming along behind.”

To work as a specialist in New Zealand would require many more years of study, which is a bit of a hard juggle while bringing up a young family, she says. 

After years of holding down a stressful job with high responsibility, Dawn now understands the importance of, at times, just ‘going with the flow’ and where life takes her.

She feels recently becoming involved with natural health has helped her to see that.

She is also a woman of strong faith.

“Not forgetting of course my heavenly father who has a plan for everyone,” she says.

Dedicated: Childrens’ health is different to adult health and requires specialised care, says Dawn.

Find Dawn on Facebook here.

The Triple P - Positive Parenting Program was started at the University of Queensland and works by helping parents to improve their parenting skills in order to establish positivity with their children. Triple P is a scientifically researched, family intervention strategy.