"Our philosophy and our aim was rather different from theirs.
"We were basically working on the principle of Whanau Ora and empowering people to take care of themselves.
"It's really good to see it's still there."
Dr Wenn actually wanted to be a teacher and gained a scholarship to university but at 17, found it a "bit of culture shock".
Her parents - "great believers in education" - sent her off to New Plymouth to train in nursing.
"Her [mother's] reason was that they educated young ladies, I actually didn't fit into that category," Dr Wenn chuckled.
But she found her vocation.
"I really quite liked it, I liked the helping aspect of it and it was a bit of competition."
Dr Wenn soon discovered there weren't many Maori nurses around.
"We were not known for our numbers."
They were also paid less than non-Maori nurses, according to Parliament records at the time, she said.
"At one stage it was felt that they didn't need to have the same level as salary as the non-Maori nurses."
Dr Wenn said training was also harder for Maori. "When they disestablished hospital-based training, Maori nurses were marginalised because it was too expensive to go to centres where nursing education occurred."
After nursing, she went on to study midwifery in Australia in the 50s and ended up in Tasmania where she worked as the "bush nurse" in the isolated area of Hythe.
She remembers walking through the bush for 14km to get to a patient. "You did all sorts of incredible things.
"I'd go out on the fishing boats when there had a been a drowning or any sort of accident at sea. There were a lot of times when there was no doctor available. You were absolutely everything including the ambulance driver."
Now Dr Wenn works as a senior research fellow at Massey University after getting her PhD, which focused on identifying core values underpinning Maori health. Much of her research involved interviewing 40 kaumatua and kuia from Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Taranaki iwi.
Massey has asked her to put together a publication of their stories which emerged from the interviews and she hopes to finish it by next year.
Dr Wenn also mentors young people in health care which she enjoys.
"Young people either say I'm formidable or inspirational."
She was pleased to be the successor of the award to Dr Lance O'Sullivan, last year's winner. "He's kind of my pin-up for health.
"He empowers Maori and lives amongst them."
She said Maori health care is evolving.
"When I look back there's an awful lot that's developed for Maori.
"The new Whanau Ora programme will certainly take it another step further along in terms of accessibility and empowering people."
She hopes to continue studying Maori philosophy this year.
"It's about Maori mythology and it relates our stories to current events and it's really quite an exciting thing to do at my age."
