Dr Maia Brewerton, New Zealand’s first Māori clinical immunologist
Dr Maia Brewerton (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) is a specialist in allergy, clinical immunology and immunopathology. Currently head of the immunology laboratory at Waitemata DHB and team leader for clinical immunology and allergic diseases at the Malaghan Institute, Dr Brewerton explains how she became the first Māori clinical immunologist, and why she looks forward to the day she is no longer the only Māori immunopathologist.
“Neither of my parents are doctors but science and mathematics were held in high regard in our household growing up in the Waikato. I was in my early high school years when I realised that I wanted to study Medicine. It was during a biology dissection lab when something clicked. I marvelled at the complexity of living things and how the jumble of organs, vessels, and nerves on the bench in front of me could possibly sustain life.
“Reflecting on my choices now as an adult, I realise that I also chose a career in medicine because I wanted to make my family proud. I think the same can be said for a lot of young people who enter into medicine.
“I am the youngest child of three and I have two older sisters who I have always looked up to. I wear a rich woven cloak of experience and knowledge from my Māori mother and Pākehā father. Dad was a constant source of information, and I spent my childhood listening to explanations of the world around me. One of my cousins once described him as ‘Google before there was Google’. He instilled a real sense of inquisitiveness in me, and a desire to learn more and understand how things work. My mother is an educator and an incredible, strong female role model. She taught me to hold my head up high and speak up if it is important. I definitely lean into the strength that comes from her when I need it.
“When I was accepted to Otago School of Medicine and moved to Dunedin, I suddenly felt a long way from my family in the North Island. My mother’s parents met at Dunedin Teachers College and to my delight, during my time as a medical student they returned to Dunedin. My grandmother was the Writer in Residence at the University of Otago College of Education for a year. My grandfather spent that year supplementing my poor student flat diet with nourishing goodness. I absolutely thrived during this time, and I am thankful to them both. I met my husband at medical school, and I will always be grateful that the choices I made brought us together and gave us two wondrous kids.
“I wanted to be a surgeon when I started medical school, however, like many my ideas had changed by the time I graduated, and I was drawn to physician training. I was toying with a few different specialty pathways after my physician exams when I sat down one day with Dr Richard Steele, an immunologist at Wellington Hospital. Pathology still wasn’t on my radar at that time until he introduced me to immunopathology. In the beginning, I somewhat reluctantly agreed to a stint in the laboratory but on the first day I walked in, it felt like coming home to the science laboratory which had set me on this course many years earlier. I loved it. I think my pathology training makes me a better physician and being a physician makes me a better pathologist.
“I have faced racism along the way and I still do. Sometimes it is overt but often it is veiled and hidden. When I told a careers counsellor at school that I wanted to do medicine she shook her head and advised me I would be better suited to reception work at a doctor’s clinic. Things like this affect people in different ways – for me it made me more determined but comments like this are extremely damaging and can change a young person’s whole life trajectory. At work I was once praised that I am not like ‘other Māori’ and it was one of the most hurtful comments I have received. I absolutely disagree, I represent Māori, intelligent, determined, and caring.
“I think it’s really important for young Māori to see themselves in medicine, to see other Māori experts and identify with that. I was the first Māori clinical immunologist (there are two of us now) and I am the only Māori immunopathologist but I look forward to the day that is no longer the case. I feel privileged and lucky to do the work I do, and I want to acknowledge everyone along the way who got me here.”
