Appointed as a lecturer in Māori health at the University of Otago in 1989, Broughton did ground-breaking research on dental health in indigenous children in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. He competed a 2006 PhD titled Oranga niho: a review of Māori oral health service provision utilising a kaupapa Māori methodology at the University of Otago. In 2012, he was appointed as a full professor at Otago, jointly in preventive and social medicine and Māori health, within the Department of Oral Diagnostic and Surgical Sciences. He is the associate dean of the School of Dentistry at Otago. Broughton was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori health, theatre and the community, in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours, and is a justice of the peace. Broughton has many governance roles.
Playwright career
While John Broughton was studying in 1988 at the University of Otago he joined a playwright course run by one of New Zealand best known playwrights Roger Hall, and subsequently Broughton wrote several plays. Broughton's best known play Michael James Manaia was a one-person play about a New Zealand Vietnam veteran first performed by actor Jim Moriarty and included an international presentation at the Edinburgh Festival. Significant in part because it was a central Māori character, this paved the way for other Māori playwrights. Twenty years after first being performed it toured New Zealand and Australia in 2012 starring Te Kohe Tuwhaka, produced by Taki Rua Productions and was critically acclaimed. Broughton received the New Zealand Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 1990.
Plays written
Entries show: Title / / /
Te Hara, 1988
Te Hokina Mai, 1988
Marae, 1992
Ka Awatea, 1994. A libretto for an opera for the National Māori Choir, commissioned by the Aoraki Festival. 1994. A gambling, drinking Buddah who affects his wife and family.
The Story of Aoraki, 'The Story of Aoraki' was originally a scene within 'Summer Starlight Winter Moon', a multimedia presentation written for shadow puppets. First performed 1997. Aoraki festival, Timaru.
Michael James Manaia, Downstage Theatre. Trauma caused by a mans upbringing and service during the war in Vietnam. 1991.
1981, About the protests of the Springbok rugby tour to New Zealand in 1981.
ANZAC, Concerning a soldier's return to Dunedin from WWI to New Zealand.
Frankie and Hone
Mana is My Name, Musical about unemployment, disability, adoption and drink driving centred around a freezing works closure in New Zealand.