Rate My Professor Jan Mckenzie

Associate Professor Jan McKenzie serves in the Medical Education Unit at the University of Otago's Christchurch campus within the Division of Health Sciences. With over two decades of service at the Christchurch campus, she was promoted to Associate Professor in Psychological Medicine in 2012. Earlier recognized as a Senior Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, McKenzie also acted as a consultant psychiatrist. She held the position of Associate Dean for Student Affairs for a decade until retiring from that role in 2020. Her contributions to medical education research span clinical skills development, student and staff health and wellbeing, resilience building, remediation for students in difficulty, and workplace learning. McKenzie's involvement extends to significant committee work, including membership on New Zealand's Medical Disciplinary Tribunal.

In psychological medicine, her research focuses on eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and binge eating, personality associations with mood disorders, depression onset across life stages, and the mental health impacts of traumatic events like the Canterbury earthquakes on university staff and medical students. She has authored or co-authored over 50 publications, accumulating more than 3,300 citations. Key publications include 'Joining the dots: Conditional pass and programmatic assessment' (Medical Teacher, 2011, with T.J. Wilkinson et al.), which examines innovative assessment methods; 'Psychological impact of the Canterbury earthquakes on university staff' (New Zealand Medical Journal, 2016, with C. Bell et al.); 'Predictors of psychological resilience amongst medical students following major earthquakes' (New Zealand Medical Journal, 2016, with F.A. Carter et al.); 'The impact of major earthquakes on the psychological functioning of a cohort of undergraduate medical students' (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2014, with F.A. Carter et al.); and 'Body-image distortion revisited: Temporal instability of perceived shape' (International Journal of Eating Disorders, 1990, with P.M.J. Brinded et al.). Her scholarship has advanced resilience strategies in medical training and post-disaster mental health support.