Rate My Professor Janine Winters

Dr Janine Winters serves as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Bioethics within the Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Otago. A Medical Doctor specializing in palliative medicine, paediatric palliative care, and family medicine, she originally hails from Ohio, USA. Winters divides her professional time equally between the university and the Otago Community Hospice, where she practices as a palliative medicine physician and oversees clinical education for medical students in palliative medicine. Her prior appointments include directing the Paediatric Palliative Care programme at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the United States, where she also led the Clinical Ethics Committee, and working at Bay of Islands Hospital in Kawakawa, New Zealand, from 2005 to 2006.

Winters' research focuses on end-of-life medical issues for adults and children, high-stakes decision-making for children, and clinical ethics consultations, with particular emphasis on paediatrics and end-of-life care. She contributes extensively to teaching at the Otago Medical School, co-convening the course BITC 405 Bioethics in Clinical Practice, tutoring in clinical skills and early professional experience, and delivering lectures on palliative medicine, paediatric palliative care, adolescent decision-making, the ethics of genetics, and literature in medicine. A member of the Australia New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine, Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, American Academy of Family Medicine, and Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, she has authored key publications such as "Conduit or conductor? Physician providers' descriptions of their role as MAiD assessors in the first years after legalisation in Canada" (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2025, with S. Walker, N.J. Pickering, and C. Jaye), "Providing medically assisted dying in Canada: A qualitative study of emotional and moral impact" (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2025, with C. Jaye, N.J. Pickering, and S. Walker), and "By their side, not on their chest: Ethical arguments to allow residential aged care admission policies to forego full cardiac resuscitation" (Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2025, with E. Hutchinson).