Our experienced staff work across the Bay of Plenty and Lakes region and can be based in any of our offices in Tauranga, Rotorua, and Whakatāne.
Our team work in a range of exciting public health roles including:
Your Medical Officers Of Health
Your Medical Officers of Health are public health physicians (doctors) who specialise in the health of groups or whole communities rather than working on individual healthcare.
The Medical Officers of Health are designated by the Director General of Health. The purpose of the Medical Officer of Health role is to improve, protect and promote the health of the population in their districts.
Read their profiles below.
Dr Phil Shoemack is a public health physician, Medical Officer of Health and Public Health Head of Service for Toi Te Ora Public Health.
He undertook all of his under-graduate and post-graduate medical training in New Zealand, and has been working in public health in the Bay of Plenty since 1986.
His interests include reducing inequalities, how to get the whole community more physically active and the prevention of health issues at a population level through healthy public policy. “I’m passionate about helping to build environments which are supportive of good population health outcomes,” says Dr Shoemack.
Qualifications and professional memberships:
Dr Jim Miller is a public health physician, Medical Officer of Health and Environmental Health Manager for Toi Te Ora Public Health.
Jim trained in public health medicine in Yorkshire, England, before spending ten years as a consultant in communicable diseases and environmental health in Scotland.
Since moving to New Zealand in 2007, he has continued to focus on health protection, whilst developing interests in leadership, and public health policy development. He currently leads our health protection team.
In the Bay of Plenty, he has taken an interest in immunisation, rheumatic fever and sanitation. Nationally, he has been active in the NZ College of Public Health Medicine, latterly as chair of their Policy Committee during a period when positions on wide range of public health issues have been developed.
"Working in public health gives me the chance to help people, individually or as families, for example when giving advice on a case of infectious diseasee, and at community or even national level by contributing to the development of new health regulations," says Dr Miller.
Qualifications and professional memberships:
Updated 04 Dec, 2023