60-Second CiLN member profile - Emily Gill

NEWS + Emily Gill, GP and senior lecturer, department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Auckland University

Could you explain what your role entails?

As a senior lecturer at the department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Auckland, I really enjoy teaching clinical medical students and pursuing my research interests (e.g., rural primary care, care coordination, informatics). The University role is grounded in my clinical, rural GP work in Te Kaha and Ōpōtiki. Working within a Māori community is foundational to my experience with, and understanding of, fair healthcare. Therefore, all roles I carry out are driven by the need for fair healthcare.

What parts of digital health interest you the most?

The clinical informatics space is where I’ve met and connected with many like-minded people, so informaticians interest me the most. My principle experience of health IT is as a user, so the User Experience is what I can contribute the most.

Ngā mihi to the many IT helpdesk people I’ve pestered along the way, as an IT enthusiast and ‘high user’ of the latest digital tool! Clinical informatics was formally integrated into my professional life after completing the 10x10 AMIA course, and carrying out a piece of informatics research.

What projects are you currently involved in?

Two tele-health research projects have been great to be involved with, and Health Forum NZ is where I spend many of the hours I’ve set aside for volunteering. It’s also been a privilege to be part of CiLN.

Otherwise, I offer unsolicited opinions about User Experience in almost any meeting I’m invited to. Perhaps invites will dry up, but I’m an unequivocal Clinical Informatics enthusiast!

If you could have any other job, what would it be?

As I’m early into my University work, which has been the ideal job for me, I cannot think of another job I’d want now.

On the other hand, the alternative course I signed up for if medical school hadn’t worked out, was Fashion Design. Crafts like sewing and fermenting flour for bread baking are interests that may have to wait another decade or so.

If you have one piece of advice for other digital health leaders, what would it be?

Join the community - Clinical informatics is currently a collaborative field, where we can all be leaders in our respective areas of interest.

Leadership is about recognizing strengths and gaps in ourselves and others, and recognising the importance of diverse team leadership where strengths and gaps are complimentary: we are stronger together!

What’s your favourite piece of technology at home and why?

Our fireplace, the printing-press, and candle-manufacturing . . . because I hate being cold and love being forced off electric technology. Nothing better than a power outage when the only option is sitting cozily by the fire with something to read by lots of candlelight!

Who would you like to play you in a film?

Being deprived of TV exposure as a child, as a deliberate strategy of my parents, the critical period for Entertainment knowledge never developed, much to my chagrin.

So, with that caveat, I’d enjoy a role in a satirical ‘Silicon Valley’-like film(I grew up an hour’s drive from Silicon Valley): I’d be the enthusiastic tauiwi supporting actress to the lead wāhine role of a NZ health IT company CEO, who is competing with large over-seas software companies.

If you would like to provide feedback on this profile, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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