Rate My Professor Salina Iupati

Dr. Salina Iupati, MBChB, FRNZCGP, FAChPM, is a palliative medicine specialist with over 30 years of experience in medical practice. She serves as a Palliative Medicine Consultant at Te Omanga Hospice in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, where she has worked for the past decade, providing community-based specialist palliative care including home-based care, 24-hour telephone and nursing support, an inpatient unit for intensive symptom management, family support services, and consultation-liaison roles with local hospitals, general practitioners, and aged residential care facilities. The hospice implements both wrap-around and collaborative models of care. Prior to specializing in palliative medicine, Iupati practiced as a general practitioner for 10 years, seven of which were with a Māori health provider in a high-needs area, following hospital experience during training. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago Dunedin School of Medicine, submitting her thesis "Future Model of Care for Community-Based Specialist Palliative Care Services" in October 2024. Her research utilized a critical realism framework, incorporating a systematic review, a national survey of all 32 New Zealand hospices, and qualitative interviews with 27 hospice leaders to develop evidence-based hybrid collaborative-wrap-around models addressing future demands from aging populations, complex care needs, equity for Māori and minorities, cultural safety per Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Whare Tapa Whā, rural challenges, and public health integration.