Rate My Professor Alex McHaffie

Dr. Alex McHaffie is a Senior Lecturer in Radiology in the Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science at the University of Otago, Christchurch, part of the Faculty of Medicine in the Division of Health Sciences. She earned a BA from the University of Wellington and an MB ChB from the University of Auckland, and is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (FRANZCR). McHaffie completed her radiology training in Auckland, served as a consultant radiologist at Middlemore Hospital (Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau), and worked in teleradiology in Australia. Relocating to Christchurch in 2015, she has been a consultant radiologist at Christchurch Hospital, specializing in general and body radiology with a focus on abdominal imaging and ultrasound.

In academia, McHaffie holds the position of Academic Lead for Curriculum Integration in the MB ChB Programme Team and contributes to teaching radiology to medical students, curriculum design, and medical education research. Her scholarly output includes co-authoring papers on rheumatoid arthritis imaging, such as 'Assessment of cartilage loss at the wrist in rheumatoid arthritis using a new MRI scoring system' (Ann Rheum Dis, 2010) and 'MRI osteitis predicts cartilage damage at the wrist in RA' (Ann Rheum Dis, 2014). Recent publications feature 'Student and Educator Experiences of an Integrated Preclinical Imaging Curriculum: A Focus Group Study' (Academic Radiology, 2023), 'The risk of confirmation bias associated with point-of-care ultrasound: a cautionary tale' (Australas J Ultrasound Med, 2022), and 'Two Cases of Adrenal Malignancy With Macroscopic Fat' (JCEM Case Rep, 2023). She has supervised theses evaluating sonographer reporting in New Zealand and participates in the Centre for Bioengineering & Nanomedicine. In 2024, she was awarded Best Vertical Module Teacher for 6th Year at the University of Otago Christchurch Matariki staff awards.