About us

Te Whare Whakamātūtū | The Rehabilitation Teaching and Research Unit

Te Whare Whakamātūtū | The Rehabilitation Teaching and Research Unit is an interprofessional team (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, clinical psychology and medicine) of researchers and educators based at the University of Otago in Wellington. Guiding our choices and actions in teaching and research are these principles:

1. Relationship: Create safe and inclusive spaces for developing collaborative and reciprocal relationships in learning and knowledge generation.
2. Responsiveness: Stay curious, listen actively, and enable rehabilitation stakeholders to shape what is taught and researched.
3. Reframing: Challenge what is taken for granted in what rehabilitation is, where, when and how it is done, and prioritise the voices of those with knowledge of rehabilitation from lived experience.

Our aim, in all our mahi, is to increase knowledge and its translation to support equity of rehabilitation access, experience and outcome. Our vision is that every person experiencing the enduring consequences of a health condition is enabled to live a flourishing life.

Occupational & Aviation Medicine

The Occupational & Aviation Medicine Unit is an international distance teaching and research unit within the Department of Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand. With 80-100 students at any one time studying remotely around the world, courses are offered in occupational medicine, aviation medicine, and aeromedical retrieval & transport.

Its Programme Director is Associate Professor Rob Griffiths, Chair of the Symposium Steering Group, and the 17 part-time teaching staff distributed worldwide teach from active professional practice, in which they are leaders in their field. Two international PhD students are engaged in research into COVID and Long COVID which are professional interests of Rob’s.

Centre for Person-Centred Research (PCR)

The Centre for Person-Centred Research (PCR) is a transdisciplinary research centre based in the Health and Rehabilitation Research Institute and School of Clinical Sciences at AUT. Our team members bring a diversity of perspectives to our research, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, critical health psychology, Māori health, sociology, medical anthropology, and nursing.

Our goal is to contribute to transformative change in rehabilitation policy and practice to optimise outcomes for people living with the enduring consequences of injury or illness. To that end, three interrelated purposes guide our work:

1. Rethinking rehabilitation, including critically exploring the taken-for-granted structures and practices which transcend disciplinary boundaries in rehabilitation, but which may be crucial to outcome.
2. Embedding person-centredness, including challenging assumptions regarding what is valued as legitimate rehabilitation ‘work’ and developing and embedding person-centred cultures of care into routine rehabilitation practice.
3. Making a difference, including developing insights into what constitutes a good rehabilitation outcome from the perspective of people living with the consequences of injury or illness, and actively seeking to impact rehabilitation policy and practice to optimise those outcomes

Health Services Research Centre|Te Hikuwai Rangahau Hauora

The Health Services Research Centre |Te Hikuwai Rangahau Hauora (Victoria University of Wellington) was founded in 1993, and since then has contributed significantly to health services research in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.

Three major grants are currently hosted at the Centre, an HRC Programme Grant “Enhancing primary health care services to improve health in Aotearoa New Zealand”, a Royal Society (Marsden Fund) study, “The Black Box of Evaluation” and a Ministry of Health (MOH) funded study, “Impacts of COVID-19 in Aotearoa | Ngā Kawekawe o Mate Korona”, as well as a variety of smaller studies. The staff are a multidisciplinary group, with expertise in Māori health research, Pacific health research and qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods analysis.

New Zealand Long COVID Support Group

A group for everyone in Aotearoa, New Zealand who suffers from Long COVID. This typically means symptoms for more than two months. This group is pushing for recognition, research and rehabilitation to aid them with their recoveries.