Speakers

Dr. Corey Regnerus-Kell has been involved within the veterinary profession across many different disciplines. From an Emergency and Critical Care Veterinary Technician in the USA, Mixed animal practice in the Coromandel, M. Bovis Eradication Veterinary Technical Expert, Companion Animal Medicine and Industry based roles have provided him with a comprehensive insight to the unique challenges the profession faces through several lenses . Mental health and wellness have been a passion for Corey setting up several initiatives during his time at Massey to support students, a new graduate support network during COVID and having been an active member of the NZVA Board. These previous experiences have provided him with the opportunity to be appointed as the Chair of the Veterinary Teams Wellbeing Working Group Governance Board as a key focus for Veterinary Futures Aotearoa.

Dave Wood is the Interim Health Improvement Manager at Toi Te Ora Public Health. He has worked in public health and workplace wellbeing for over 13 years. Leading the Workplaces team at Toi Te Ora, he has overseen the development and expansion of WorkWell, the gold standard workplace wellbeing programme. His role has seen him establish networks with like-minded workplace wellbeing advocates across the country and helped lead the establishment of the National Workplace Wellbeing Community of Practice. Dave has mentored health promoters from across Aotearoa/New Zealand to see them successfully support local workplaces as they implement their wellbeing programmes. Having worked in many sectors that would have scoffed at the idea of workplace wellbeing, he loves to see workplaces committing to and fully engaging with the staff and their wellbeing.

Dr Fiona Moir trained in the UK at Sheffield University and went on to work as a GP in Britain and New Zealand. She divides her time between the Auckland Medical Programme and her private education business, Connect Communications, which specialises in communication, supervision, and wellbeing training. Connect was established in 2001 and works with national health professional bodies such as the Medical Council of New Zealand, the New Zealand Pharmaceutical Society, the Veterinary Council of New Zealand, and the New Zealand Dental Association. At the University of Auckland, Fiona undertakes research, developed and runs a wellbeing curriculum for medical students and has created comprehensive pastoral care policies and care pathways for the medical school as well as being involved in wider University wellbeing initiatives. She is a Senior Lecturer in The Department of General Practice at The University of Auckland, teaching both post-graduate and undergraduate students. Fiona’s background is in General Practice, and her PhD is in student wellbeing.

Fiona's interests are the health of health professionals; early interventions for stress, anxiety and depression; self-care, and communication skills. She is one of the co-authors of the CALM website, a resource for stress management and happiness, which was originally made available to students and then later released to the public. In 2018, she won the University of Auckland Vice-Chancellors Excellence Award for Health, Safety and Wellbeing. She has co-designed and led HOTSPOTS, the anti-bullying initiative which won a New Zealand Work Health and Safety Award in 2022. She has published widely and regularly presents at plenary sessions or runs workshops at academic conferences, as well as working with doctors, nurses, vets, dentists, pharmacists, and other industry groups across New Zealand and Australia.

Following graduation from the University of Queensland (UQ) Australia in 1991 Michael practiced as a companion animal veterinarian for 10 years in Sydney, Brisbane and the United Kingdom (U.K.) He returned from the U.K in early 2001 to complete an Honours degree in Psychology and then a PhD about training veterinarians and veterinary technicians in professional skills required for successful veterinary practice. During this time he continued to practice as a veterinarian and was employed as a lecturer at UQ, teaching veterinary students and veterinary technicians about communication skills and other non-technical competencies (conflict resolution, professional ethics, human-animal bond, euthanasia and managing client grief, improving mental health and well-being) In 2011 he travelled to Canada for a tenure track position at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) University of Guelph researching and teaching into their Art of Veterinary Medicine program and training students at their Primary Healthcare Centre. He returned “down under” and “across the ditch” in 2015 and returned to practicing part-time as a veterinarian and continues to research and teach about veterinary professional skills. He has developed courses for the NZVA on professional skills training and currently holds an adjunct position at Massey University.