Rate My Professor Cindy Towns

Associate Professor Cindy Towns is a clinician-researcher in the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago, Wellington, where she was promoted to her current position effective February 1, 2026. She graduated from the University of Otago's intercalated MBChB PhD program with a PhD in bioethics focused on stem cell ethics, and holds a BSc with high honours from Idaho State University. A Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in General and Acute Medicine and Geriatrics, she serves as a Consultant Physician in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Wellington Hospital, and as Clinical Ethics Advisor for Te Whatu Ora Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley. Previously, she was a Lecturer at the University of Otago Bioethics Centre and an adjunct senior lecturer there. Towns maintains a special clinical interest in acute hepatic porphyrias, running an ad hoc clinic for patients at Wellington Hospital.

Her academic interests span clinical ethics, patient rights and safety, geriatrics, internal medicine, and porphyria management. Notable publications include 'General medicine wards and the mental health crisis: invisible and unsafe' (2025, Internal Medicine Journal, co-authored with Kay Hodgetts et al.), 'Poor planning: hospital design guidelines fundamentally flawed' (2025, New Zealand Medical Journal, with Michelle Balm), 'Cultural safety, the LGBTQI+ community and international medical graduate training' (2025, Medical Journal of Australia, with Charlene Rapsey and Rhea Liang), 'High penetrance, recurrent attacks and thrombus formation in a family with hereditary coproporphyria' (2022, Molecular Genetics & Metabolic Reports, with Sobana Balakrishnan et al.), and earlier bioethics works such as 'Stem cells, embryos, and the environment: a context for both science and ethics' (2004, Journal of Medical Ethics, with D.G. Jones). She has influenced clinical practice and policy through board roles including the Clinical Ethics Society of Australasia (CESA), Ethics Advisory Board for CHDI/Enroll-HD, Australian Porphyria Association, and as former chair of the RACP Ethics Committee and member of the National Ethics Advisory Committee (2020-2023). Towns is also a member of the Public Health Association of New Zealand.