Medtech Global GP of the Year finalist Genevieve Matthews 

“Some people describe me as very driven – to my detriment sometimes,” says specialist GP Genevieve Matthews.

But this isn’t to say she’s on a one-way road to burnout. This 2026 New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards | He Tohu Mauri Ora Medtech Global GP of the Year finalist is also careful to protect her wellbeing and direct her energies to where she feels most valuable.

A stay in hospital as a young girl provided a valuable lesson. “I remember they didn’t really talk to me; it was very impersonal. I thought if I was a doctor, I would want to approach things differently.”

An afternoon spent with a rural GP in England during a nannying gap year left a positive impression. Still, Dr Matthews admits to being “slightly underwhelmed” by her early exposure to practising medicine in New Zealand.

The relentless churn, rigid structures and shift work of the hospital system also clashed with the life she saw for herself. Newly married, Dr Matthews wanted a future with a family, plenty of time outdoors and just enough minor surgery to keep her hand in.

General practice it was then. But where?

She had met her husband while working in Rotorua, but had grown up in Christchurch, so with preschoolers in tow, the couple spent an “adult gap year” exploring the South Island in 2013, with each road trip bookended by locum work.

“If I can change something so that it is slightly better, I can keep going”

After returning to the Bay of Plenty, Dr Matthews started working at Ngongotahā Medical Centre, where she had trained as a registrar in 2007. She found it such a perfect fit that she became a co-owner in 2014.

“Coming back, I realised how very strong our connections as GPs are here. That was a really cool thing to realise; we have such a great network, and that includes connections with our secondary colleagues.”

Self-care has always been a priority and has sometimes steered her career in new directions, “just to shift the balance a bit”, Dr Matthews says.

“This year, I’ve been doing more governance (she is chair of Rotorua Area Primary Health Services PHO) and education. I guess it’s stage-of-life and about staying well in myself.

“It’s about looking after myself and being fulfilled, but also being well-balanced; how I can remain valuable? So, when I dropped back on clinical medicine, I could still be valuable in other ways.”

Dr Matthews continues to find huge reward in medical education.

“We have amazing young doctors coming through. Sometimes I think I don’t know if I’d get into medical school these days. You look at the calibre of these young people – wow.”

Her own registrar years taught her the value of mentors, so she does her utmost to pass on the lessons offered to her; the values, the realities of general practice and the autonomy to develop the workplace culture and environment you want.

“I’m always on the lookout for solutions. I’ve never been one for looking at the state of the health system and going, ‘Oh look, it’s all hopeless.’

“I look for things I can immediately influence; what is the stuff I can change and what is the stuff I can’t change?

“If I can change something even so that it is slightly better, I can keep going. If I can’t, well, then I try to look at it in a different way. That’s the only way I stay – that and realising I work with great people who every day do good things.”

Accepting the nomination for Medtech Global GP of the Year required some thought.

“I did have to have a think; it’s not something that’s normally in my comfort zone.”

Outside work, Dr Matthews enjoys the outdoors and sometimes looks after her neighbour’s dog, Gus.