As president of the student body it made sense to have a degree of flexibility this year to present medical students' views on health policy to the main political parties before the general election, Mr Hansby said.
However, his main focus was a special honours degree researching the effectiveness of New Zealand's 20 district health boards.
Mr Hansby leaves Dunedin next week after spending the summer in the city beginning his research, which would be supervised by University of Otago preventive and social medicine academics Associate Prof Robin Gauld, of Dunedin, Dr Simon Horsburgh, of Dunedin, and public health specialist Dr Phil Hider, of Christchurch.
Other studies had shown health outcomes were influenced by the quality of governance, so the work was of interest to clinicians, he said.
Voter turnout for the past four board elections, since the first in 2001, would be analysed.
"The research will also aim to deduce what the voting public views as important when electing DHB candidates, as well as surveying DHB members' opinions relating to their skills, experience and training for serving on DHBs."
So far, his research suggested that, not surprisingly, members re-standing for boards tended to be re-elected, but whether this was due to name recognition or strength of performance was unclear.
For context, he would compare New Zealand's health system with those of Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Australia; countries chosen because of similar population, life expectancy or cultural ties.
Having spent the first three years of his medical studies in Dunedin, Mr Hansby had enjoyed revisiting a few of his favourite haunts, such as Tunnel beach.
He completed his fifth year at medical school last year in Christchurch.
