Before leaving general practice in 2025, I spent 40 years as a GP. I have been a medical educator for nearly twenty years. I have ten years of informal psychotherapy training and have provided over 1000 hrs of counselling in my practice, with regular supervision. My training in object relations and self-psychology was informal due to the unavailability of a part-time psychotherapy training course while working full-time in general practice. Training consisted of a lot of reading, seminars and frequent supervision from four different psychotherapists over ten years.

I have provided over 900 hours each of one-to-one and group supervision for doctors focussing on the doctor-patient relationship, ethical issues, behaviour change (sometimes called motivational interviewing) and other non-biomedical aspects of medical practice. I had a central role in redesigning the national Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners communication skills training programme in 2008 and then a subsequent review in 2021. This included introducing a section on dealing with conflict which continues to this day. I provided numerous communication skills seminars for doctors and medical educators. This knowledge and experience has proved highly applicable to Christian leaders and other helping professionals dealing with relationship challenges and other demanding aspects of their work.

I am married with two adult children and two grandchildren.
I am a fifth generation New Zealander on my mother’s side. My great great great grandfather worked for Governor Hobson and was present at the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. I am very committed to Aoteroa New Zealand as a treaty-based multicultural society and for ten years was a member of the bicultural steering committee of Te Raranga, a Canterbury based interdenominational organisation.
Thirty years ago, with three other couples, my wife and I helped plant and establish a church that continues to this day. We also have longstanding and extensive experience with the house church/microchurch movement.

Dealing with Conflict
In the last year I have been asked to provide nine separate seminars to different groups of church leaders from different denominations, about dealing with conflict. One webinar was for leaders of New Zealand charities and one, yet to come, will have a specific focus on complaints.
I have given many seminars to doctors on this topic, including medical educators, and I have many years of providing supervision, advice and coaching for doctors and other professionals dealing with small and large conflicts. One Christian minister going through a prolonged complaint and receiving other professional support, recently said, ‘This is the most helpful conversation I have had in two years.’

More than a decade ago, I was on the receiving end of a high level vexatious complaint. It was very stressful but I do not regret it because I grew as a person and learned much. Like many health professionals I also have additional personal experience on the receiving end of less severe complaints. What I learned has proved very helpful to others dealing with complaints.

I wrote an article for doctors about psychological recovery from complaints. It was published twice by the New Zealand Medical Protection Society and has been included in the Otago Medical School third year Adverse Outcomes programme.