Dr Emily Cavana

Senior Lecturer

Email emily.cavana@otago.ac.nz

Background and interests

Dr Emily Cavana is a first-generation New Zealander with predominantly Irish and Scottish heritage.

She is a specialist general practitioner and has been working in the greater Wellington region as a GP since 2006. She is a Fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP). She currently practices at Vibe, a Youth One Stop Shop (YOSS) in the Hutt Valley. She joined the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice in 2023 as a senior lecturer. She is also a medical educator for the RNZCGP and examination assessor.

She represents the RNZCGP as an expert adviser in the area of cervical screening and has been a member of Cervical Screening Advisory and Working Groups at a national level since 2014.

Emily completed her BSc at Victoria University of Wellington before moving to Australia to undertake her BMBS at Flinders University in Adelaide. She completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Health Sciences in 2022 with a focus on general practice and CBT .

Teaching activities

Emily enjoys teaching. It provides her an opportunity to interact with a diverse range of learners and reflect on her own practice. Alongside her patients Emily has worked as a clinical teacher for a number of years. She has had both medical students and GP trainees sit in on her day-to-day patient facing work. In the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice she works predominantly with medical students at the undergraduate level. As a medical educator for the RNZCGP she works with senior GP trainees.

Research activities

Emily has research interests in wellbeing, youth and women's health.