Rate My Professor Janine Lander

Dr. Janine Lander is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine's Centre for Rural Health at the University of Otago, where she serves as Director of the Rural Medical Immersion Programme (RMIP) and Regional Co-ordinator for Ashburton. A Rural Hospital Generalist at Ashburton Hospital since 2015, she contributes to a well-supported teaching hospital environment through the Rural Health Academic Centre Ashburton, which facilitates local and national rural interprofessional clinical education and research. She is based in the Dunedin School of Medicine and shares the Ashburton RMIP coordination role with colleagues Alex and Penny.

Growing up in Tāmaki Makaurau, Lander completed a Master's degree in Medical Science and worked as a research assistant in Molecular Medicine before graduating from Auckland Medical School. Her interest in rural general and hospital practice developed during a fourth-year clinical placement in Dargaville. She moved to Timaru for postgraduate house officer years and began the Rural Hospital Training Programme in 2009, gaining broad experience from rural practitioners across the country. Lander's research focuses on rural medical education and practice outcomes. Key publications include 'Predictors of rural medical practice in Aotearoa New Zealand: a national outcomes prospective cohort study' (BMJ Open, 2026, co-authored with K. Costello, G. Nixon, et al.), identifying rural origin, older age at entry, and extended rural placements as predictors; 'Doing without the residential component of a blended postgraduate rural medical programme during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand: student perspectives' (Education for Primary Care, 2022); 'Transition of the medical model of care at Ashburton hospital over 10 years: the perspective of rural generalists' (2020); and earlier contributions such as '15-Deoxy-Δ^12,14-prostaglandin J₂, a Ligand for Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-γ, Induces Apoptosis in JEG3 Choriocarcinoma Cells' (1999) and her MSc thesis on developmental regulation of IGF genes in ovine placenta (1997).