Practical education for clinicians
Keja Health creates applied, clinically grounded education that helps doctors bridge the gap between training and real-world practice. We educate clinicians to make confident decisions, work effectively with their teams, and improve patient outcomes across Aotearoa’s health system.
Our focus is on practical skills and lived experience, learning from those who have made the transition from training to consultant practice and know what they wish they had known at the start. Our programmes focus on doing what you can with the resources available, staying equipped in a system that is constantly changing, and building confidence through understanding real clinical context.
Launching March 2026:
How to be A SMO
A practical guide to starting as a new senior medical officer and fellow in Aotearoa
‘How to be a SMO’ is Keja Health’s first course, designed to support doctors through the early years of consultant practice. It provides a practical, clinician-led guide to managing the responsibilities, decisions, and realities that come with leading teams and delivering care in Aotearoa’s health system.
The course is self-paced and designed as a long-term reference — a resource you can return to throughout your first years as a consultant. Each module combines applied learning, reflective questions, and real clinical scenarios contributed by experienced SMOs.
What Can you learn from The ‘How to be a SMO’ Course?
‘Becoming a SMO’ is Keja Health’s first course, designed for doctors stepping into consultant roles across Aotearoa. It focuses on the everyday realities of the job — the parts of practice that are rarely taught but make all the difference to how teams function and patients receive care.
The course blends experience-based insights with practical tools, templates, and reflective exercises. It’s intended as a guide you can refer to throughout your early years as an SMO: what to do, what to watch for, and what others wish they’d known before they started.
You can move through modules in any order, using them as needed for inpatient work, clinics, on-call duties, and service leadership. Each one connects back to real clinical settings and the flow of patients through the system.
key Learning modules
Inpatient care and patient flow
Managing admissions, rounds, discharges, and bed pressure while maintaining patient safety and team rhythm.
Outpatient and follow-up care
Running efficient clinics, setting up safe follow-up systems, and balancing service demand with continuity of care.
Pathways and access across the system
Understanding how patients move between hospital, community, and primary care — and how you can improve coordination and equity of access.
Teamwork and communication
Leading multidisciplinary teams, managing conflict, and ensuring clear handover between clinicians and services.
Sustaining yourself in the role
Maintaining wellbeing, setting realistic boundaries, and building confidence in a system that is constantly changing.
Every module is written and reviewed by practising SMOs who have made the transition themselves, bringing together what they learned and what they wish they had known.
Stay informed as the course develops, And As More Courses are Released
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About Keja Health
Why Keja Health was founded
Keja Health was created to make clinical education more practical, accessible, and directly relevant to the realities of working in Aotearoa’s health system. Too often, doctors finish training well-prepared for exams but under-prepared for the day-to-day responsibilities of consultant life. Our aim is to bridge that gap with learning that focuses on what actually happens on wards, in clinics, and across patient pathways.
We believe that better-equipped clinicians lead to stronger teams and better patient outcomes — and that education should evolve with the system it serves.
How we work
Keja Health builds education through collaboration — engaging directly with clinicians, cultural advisors, and professional partners at every stage. We work alongside professional bodies and colleges to ensure alignment with CPD and CME frameworks, while maintaining independence in course design and development. This ensures our programmes are credible, practical, and responsive to the needs of clinicians and the communities they serve.
Our approach is simple: co-design with those who deliver care, build learning that fits around real clinical work, and evolve continuously as the health system changes to ensure better patient care for everyone.
Clinical Education Team
Dr Kevin Chen — Managing Director
Kevin leads Keja Health’s clinical direction and course design. He is a specialist in Infectious Diseases and General Medicine, with experience across tertiary and regional hospitals. His focus is on making clinical education directly applicable to practice, combining sound clinical judgement with the realities of service delivery and patient care in Aotearoa.
Clinical Education Advisory Board
Dr Michelle Downie
Consultant General Physician and Endocrinologist, and current President of the Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand (IMSANZ). Michelle has contributed extensively to clinical education through the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and other professional committees, and brings strong experience in governance, mentorship, and clinician development.
Dr Diane Hanfelt-Goade
Retired Consultant in General Medicine and Infectious Diseases, with a PhD and former Professorship in Virology in the United States. Diane has held numerous education and leadership roles alongside her decades of clinical practice, and brings significant global and frontline experience, including her work during the Ebola response.
Dr Jane Ewens (PhD)
An experienced academic leader with a career in early childhood education. Jane has led bachelor programmes, professional training, and national curriculum development, and was a leading contributor to New Zealand’s early childhood teacher training framework. She holds a PhD in early childhood education and brings deep expertise in learning design and pedagogy.
Dr Orna McGinn
General Practitioner and Clinical Lead at Ostend Medical Centre on Waiheke Island. Orna chairs the New Zealand Women in Medicine Charitable Trust and serves as an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Auckland. She has held a range of leadership and education roles, including Clinical Director of Primary Care Women’s Health at Auckland DHB, and continues to advocate for equitable access to women’s health services across Aotearoa.