Prof Broughton has been awarded the South's top honour, a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for his services to Maori health, theatre, and the community.
"It's a bit overwhelming and very humbling. It reflects the fantastic people who I work with at the university, and all the health providers that I engage with round the country.
"And also in the theatre side, with the amazing theatre companies that I've had the privilege to work with, and who wanted to stage my plays,'' Prof Broughton (69) said.
He has written or co-produced more than 22 theatre productions and his play, The Private War of Corporal Cooper, was recently performed again to mark the World War 1 centenary commemoration.
Prof Broughton, jointly appointed at the Otago Medical School, and the School of Dentistry, was raised in Hastings but moved to Dunedin in 1974 to study dentistry.
He had deep roots in the city, his Dunedin mother giving him Ngai Tahu heritage. His father had studied medicine in Dunedin.
Before dentistry, Prof Broughton studied science at Massey University, and was working in Honolulu, when he decided he needed to "do something serious''.
He was admitted to dental school and has "virtually been there ever since''.
Former vice-chancellor Prof Sir David Skegg was instrumental in encouraging Prof Broughton's teaching work.
"He was a patient of mine when I was on practice, and he made an offer I couldn't refuse . . . to take a position initially at the medical school to introduce the Hauora Maori curriculum in the health sciences.''
Prof Broughton said the health sciences division now had a "great team of Maori health professionals'' and he had been able to scale back his teaching work in that regard.
He is pleased to see the increase in Maori and Pacific Island health sciences students.
"It's not all doom, gloom and depression. Over the decades there's been some great improvements and some great advances. I think one of the major things is the increase in the Maori health workforce.''
Prof Broughton is the New Zealand principal investigator for an indigenous health research partnership studying early childhood dental caries in New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
He was a founding director of the Ngai Tahu Maori Health Research Unit from 1996 to 2011, and established and has been director of the Maori Dental Health Clinic at the School of Dentistry since 1990.
He has been a member of the Maori Advisory Committee for Otago Museum since 2000, and was on the Mana Whenua Committee of the Otago Settlers Museum from 1995 to 2010.
He is on the board of the Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital, and the Dunedin RSA Welfare Trust.
CNZM
Prof John Renata Broughton, ED
Dunedin
Services to Maori health, theatre and community
