TheCATHARTIC ALUMNI MAGAZINE | FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES | 2007 Contents Charting a new course on change and leadership Features From Cape Town to the Wild West - with love ________________________2 In memory of Marinus van den Ende______________________3 Robertson’s reward for a distinguished career _______________4 Robertson prize for excellence________4 Sports scientist makes waves in Belgium __________________5 Training rural doctors for success _____5 Dean, Professor Faculty News Marian Jacobs. Medical student finds comfort at the Faculty_______________6 esonating with the national and a Harvard fellowship) and his local Death of Raymond Sir debates and dialogue, change experience in both rural and urban South “Bill” Hoffenberg___________________6 in leadership, on the one hand, Africa – holds strong promise for a brand of President opens new and leadership for change, leadership which will take UCT forward research facility ____________________7 Rhave been major themes for discourse not only in its international positioning, International accolade across the University and the Faculty in but also in relation to the needs of the con- for Kit Vaughan____________________8 recent years. And the past few months’ tinent and the country. Local technology to focus on change in the University leader- In academic health sciences, one prior- improve global health _______________8 A celebration of ship and recruitment of a new Vice- ity has been addressing the demands on academic achievement ______________8 Chancellor has resulted in the appointment heads of clinical departments who face Opie wins national order ____________9 of Dr Max Price, former Dean of Health increasing pressures in a changing health Honour for Sciences at Wits University. environment. The huge burden of disease, physiotheraphy professor ____________9 Dr Price comes with a long history in along with the Constitutional imperative to leadership. From as far back as his student promote quality health care for all, has Inaugural lectures years, this has included his position as SRC resulted in change in the shape, size and Lyn Denny, Martin Schwellnus, President at Wits, his role as director of the resourcing of the academic health platform, Bongani Mayosi and Rodney Ehrlich _10 national research Centre for Health Policy, calling for a concomitant change in the and – most recently – a decade as Dean of response of academic medicine and its lead- Publications and research Health Sciences at Wits. But he has also ership – both now, and in the future. made substantive contributions to change Building student leadership is a priority. Improving research capacity ________11 through these various leadership positions, That our current student leaders have a Committed to research excellence ____11 For the love of the written word _____11 the most noteworthy of which are his par- concern for the future – and are in prepara- ticipation in transformation of the post- tion for succession – is incontrovertible. Reunions apartheid health sector, his role in engaging Student societies are focussed on issues with national issues such as the Truth and such a rural health care, HIV/AIDS and on Friends of 1953 gather Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the building a culture of enquiry, all of which at Forries ________________________12 HIV/AIDS pandemic, his innovative ap- will contribute to their ability for leader- Postgraduate cocktails______________12 Fifty years of physio _______________13 proaches to developing academic medicine ship and a good prognosis for health. Reunions 2007/8 __________________14 at Wits and its transformation challenges. With a strong Vice-Chancellor, a robust This track record – combined with his dialogue on leadership of academic medi- Where are they now? wide-ranging international exposure cine, and a student taproot of future lead- (including a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford ers, we are set for an optimistic Price era. News of old friends and colleagues ___16 TheCATHARTIC FEATURE From Cape Town to the Wild West — with love The road from wide-eyed fresh- man on the steps in front of Jamieson Hall at UCT in 1963 to a seat on the City Council of Norco, California in 2007 is the long, and sometimes arduous journey, travelled by Malcolm Miller. Cathartic interviewed him about his extraordinary experiences along the way. You had so much to offer your community as a black doctor. What prompted you to leave South Africa and do you have any regrets about this? Malcolm Miller with his wife Donna Miller on his farm in Norco, California. I so much wanted to be a “doctor” and not a “black doctor”. When I originally left I can still feel the ache of loneliness How tragic! South Africa, it was to pursue training as during those first few years in Boston. an anaesthetist abroad and then return to Everything was so unfamiliar. Being with- Did it influence your decision to leave Cape Town, South Africa. After complet- out friends and family left a void which is South Africa? ing my training at Harvard Medical School indescribable. I left South Africa when I It definitely was a factor in my decision to where I had been appointed Chief Resident was 27 years old. I have now spent 35 years leave South Africa. There were many other and Research Fellow, I returned to Cape in the United States and can say without factors as well. These included the constant Town for an interview with the then Chief any fear of contradiction that I could not degradation, the differential salary scales, of Anaesthesia at Groote Schuur Hospital be any happier. I have been fortunate the Group Areas Act with inferior residen- in 1976. All he had to offer was a tentative enough to visit South Africa regularly to tial areas, educational facilities and places position at New Somerset Hospital. I had see family and friends. However, the US is of entertainment, the high crime rate, and interned there so I knew what the position now my home and I am always happy to the incessant discussion of apartheid as if entailed. It held no interest for me. Fur- return. there was nothing else of interest to dis- thermore, I had already been offered a cuss. teaching position at Harvard Medical As a doctor you were trained to save lives School. but you were not allowed to attend to a As a student you had different facilities to Leaving one’s homeland brings up a white accident victim. How did you feel white students and you were not allowed host of confusing emotions. Professionally about this contradiction? to dissect white cadavers. Were you re- the world was my oyster after the time I This was just one of many of the degrada- sentful about this? had spent at Harvard Medical School. tions handed out to a second-class citizen. This was just one of the many degradations Having been spurned in my attempts to It was so patently absurd that medical that were so tiresome. There were so many return to Cape Town, I had to deal with treatment was delayed because of ethnic others. During our first year, we could not the personal issues of living abroad. Having considerations. There were many instances have a class party on campus. The chancel- moved from a very closely-knit family, to where black victims especially were denied lor’s excuse was that we had to “abide by living 10 000 miles away was heart- prompt medical treatment because a the customs and conventions of the society wrenching. “white” ambulance had been dispatched. we lived in”. He would not permit a multi- 2 TheCATHARTIC racial party on campus. Nor were we al- husetts General Hospital, the location MEMORIAL LECTURE lowed to use the tennis courts or other of the first public demonstration of recreational facilities. During our third anaesthesia in 1846; year in pathology, black students were not • the publication, without revision, of allowed to attend autopsies on white pa- my first paper titled “Surgery for Car- In memory of tients unless the dissection had been per- diogenic Shock” in The Lancet in 1974; Marinus van formed before the students were present. • the publication of a book on intensive During our fourth year, black students care titled “Applied Physiology of den Ende were asked to excuse themselves from Respiratory Care” in 1975; clinical conferences if the patient hap- • moving to California as an Assistant The Faculty hosted a lecture in Novem- pened to be white. Black students were not Professor at the University of Califor- ber 2007 by Dr Jan van den Ende enti- allowed to participate in ward rounds on nia Irvine; tled Malaria Control in South Africa: the white side of the hospital, effectively • my experiences as a horseman when I Progress in recent years in memory of reducing our instruction time by almost 50 retired from the practice of anaesthe- his late father Professor Marinus van den percent. To say that I was resentful would sia in 1995; and Ende. be an understatement. • my recent election as Councilman to Van den Ende said South Africa is the City of Norco. Norco is where, the “toe” of malaria, affecting only How has your past experiences impacted instead of pavements, we have more KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpuma- on the way you feel about your alma than 120 miles of horse trails through- langa. “And we should cut the nail off”. mater? Are you aware of the enormous out the city as well as trails in the He said malaria was the third most strides made to transform UCT under riverbed which traverses the city. problematic disease after HIV/AIDS and the leadership of VC Professor Njabulo Governing such a city provides special tuberculosis. Ndebele? challenges. Residential and commer- Dr Jan van den Ende, now retired, is The University of Cape Town gave me my cial development must be carefully a graduate of UCT.