Rate My Professor Lynn McBain

Professor Lynn McBain serves as Head of the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice and Deputy Dean at the University of Otago Wellington campus within the Faculty of Medicine. She earned her BSc and MD from Dalhousie University in Canada, along with Dip Obst, Dip GP, and FRNZCGP(Dist). Immigrating to New Zealand in the late 1980s, she began her career as a house surgeon in Hawera, Taranaki, and worked as a partner at Brooklyn Medical Centre for 32 years until early 2022, while continuing as a locum for rural colleagues. Joining the University of Otago in 1995 as a part-time lecturer, she advanced to Head of Department in 2017 and Deputy Dean in 2022, with promotion to full professor in 2024. McBain chairs Impairment Committees for the New Zealand Education Council and convenes Professional Conduct Committees for the New Zealand Medical Council. In 2011, she was awarded the Distinguished Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.

McBain's academic interests encompass medical education, quality improvement in primary care, and health services research. Current projects address primary care prescribing, oral health integration in primary medical care, and the primary care perspective on HPV testing rollout for cervical screening. She teaches across undergraduate years in primary health care and general practice, convened fourth- and fifth-year programs, led innovative genital examination training, and co-convenes the postgraduate paper GENA 710 on Mental Health and Illness in Primary Care. She supervises masters and PhD students and contributes to the Medical Curriculum Committee and Palliative and End of Life Care oversight group. Key publications include 'Mana motuhake - I am in charge and have control over my body: A cross-sectional survey describing Māori participants' experience with HPV primary screening in Aotearoa New Zealand' (2025, Journal of Racial & Ethnic Health Disparities), 'Assessing the applicability of the Model for Understanding Success in Quality (MUSIQ) for primary care: A multi-case mixed methods analysis' (2025, Journal of Primary Health Care), 'Filling a gap: Development and evaluation of an oral health clinical skills module for medical students' (2025, ANZAHPE Conference Proceedings), and 'Genital examination training: assessing the effectiveness of an integrated female and male teaching programme' (2016). Her work enhances clinical skills training, health equity, and service quality in general practice.