Emma Wehipeihana

Guest writer

Emma Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) is a doctor and writer who works at Middlemore Hospital. She comments on social issues, equity, health, and politics. She is the host of podcast Getting Better: A Year in the Life of a Māori Medical Student, and the author of There's a Cure For This, a memoir.

Image: Archi Banal

We’re done with being asked to justify our ‘privilege’

In the context of a health system at breaking point, widespread burnout and scary workforce projections, placing this malevolent spotlight on trainee doctors is incredibly cruel.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 29th November, 2023

Image: Archi Banal

Why I’m opting out of the election this year

'I plan to do nothing more than write this piece, vote, and continue to go to work every day in our catastrophically under-resourced health system.'

By Emma Wehipeihana | 18th September, 2023

Design: Archi Banal

Sweet llamas in the night: An excerpt from There’s a Cure For This by Emma Espiner

A meditation on motherhood, parenting and the medical system.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 14th May, 2023

The Sunday Essay: On the frontline

The Sunday Essay: On the frontline

Emma Espiner on the ceaselessness of this pandemic.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 10th April, 2022

Never forget (Image: Instagram)

Simon Bridges is still figuring himself out – National Identity, reviewed

His memoir contains a lot more nuance than you'd expect.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 31st August, 2021

Illustration by Toby Morris

The strange realities of being a doctor on the night shift

First year doctor Emma Espiner shares the madness and mundanity of working nights in Middlemore Hospital’s medical ward.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 16th August, 2021

Charlotte Grimshaw with her mother, Kay (Photo: Marti Friedlander, Courtesy of the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust; design work Tina Tiller)

A life rewritten: Charlotte Grimshaw’s memoir The Mirror Book, reviewed

'Lovely childhood, house full of books.' That's the story the family told about themselves – but The Mirror Book shatters it all.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 30th March, 2021

The doctors of TVNZ’s The Checkup (Photo: Supplied)

Review: The Checkup smartly answers all your stupid medical questions

Doctor Emma Espiner watches TVNZ's The Checkup, which promises to tell you the things about health that you really want to know.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 8th February, 2021

Dr Maxine Ronald (Image: Miriama Grace-Smith)

The doctor devoted to improving Māori breast cancer care

Emma Espiner talks to Dr Maxine Ronald, the only wahine Māori consultant breast cancer surgeon in the world, about inequities in breast cancer outcomes for Māori.

By Emma Wehipeihana | 28th October, 2020