Samoan student Oka Sanerivi has made history by becoming the first University of Otago physiotherapy PhD candidate to defend his PhD off campus.

He is the first to do it at the Samoan High Commission in Wellington.

Samoan delegates, his extended aiga (family), physiotherapy professionals, academics, and members of his Samoan church communities were all in attendance to celebrate the defence – the oral examination of his PhD.

Attendees included the Deputy High Commissioner of Samoa, Juliana Lafaialii, who was representing High Commissioner Afamasaga Faamatalaupu Toleafoa.

Oka said it was a privilege to deliver his defence at the High Commission in front of so many people of personal and professional significance to his life.

“I could have flown down from [my home in] Gisborne to Dunedin to deliver my defence in a classroom, but after all the support shown by others to get me here, I couldn’t imagine doing it outside my community,” Oka said.

“It’s a privilege to be the first Pacific person to be awarded a physiotherapy PhD and I’m acutely aware of how I could not have reached this point without the social, spiritual and financial support of my wife, family, village, the Samoan Government and the University.”

Oka’s interest in physiotherapy started at a young age with a love for both sports and the people in his villages of Lefaga and Letogo on the island of Upolu and Fusi, Safotulafai, on the island of Savaii.

He said the people who raised him, from his aiga to members of the church, many of whom were factory working migrants, and others, placed significant value on getting educated and sacrificed a great deal for him to pursue his dreams – physiotherapy was his way of returning the favour.

“There was always the path of medicine or law, but I saw physiotherapy as the marriage of my passion for sports and a type of healthcare that practically enables people to become the best versions of themselves,” he said.

“Initially I thought about going to study in Auckland because I have family there, but Otago is viewed as a prestigious university in the eyes of Pacific peoples as it is New Zealand’s oldest university and was the first School of Physiotherapy in the country, so it holds a great deal of mana.”

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2007, a Bachelor of Physiotherapy in 2010 and began his Master of Physiotherapy in 2020 which was extended into this PhD.

In 2019, during the measles outbreak in Samoa, Otago’s Director of the Va'a o Tautai Centre for Pacific Health, Faumuina Professor Fa'afetai Sopoaga CNZM, organised a delegation of healthcare professionals to support the nation. Oka was part of that team and tasked with organising a physiotherapy response.

While working in the intensive care unit there, he realised that his physiotherapy expertise did not solely come from his undergraduate studies but was more informed by his culture.

This discovery led him down the postgraduate pathway, focusing on how Samoan cultural knowledge could transform physiotherapy practice with Samoan families.

His research sought out how physiotherapists might better engage with Samoan patients, making sure to include the expertise of other Samoan health practitioners like elders and taulāsea (traditional therapists and medicine physicians).

Oka said these people provided insight into the rich tapestry of healthcare knowledge in Samoa and resulted in him developing a healthcare model based on a traditional dance called the Taualuga.

He said Eurocentric worldviews are pervasive in physiotherapy, oftentimes shaping how the practice is theorised and performed.

“Physiotherapy has not been contextualised by other people groups in our corner of the world and so I’m grateful to be playing my part in breaking that mould.”