TheCATHARTIC ALUMNI MAGAZINE | FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES | 2008 Striving for health excellence Contents 2008 has been an eventful year in South students of this university have enjoyed Africa, with significant impact on our over decades. Our initial impressions are Features Faculty. The “xenophobic” crisis resulted that the fit between curriculum content From Greece … to Rhodesia … to South in widespread health challenges and the and its products, on the one hand, and the Africa … to the USA … and back to SA, civil society response in this region was led requirements of the healthcare delivery with love _________________________2 to a large measure by our students in system, on the other, is good. And UCT climbs world rankings __________3 Installation of new VC ______________4 SHAWCO. And on both the provincial evidence that quality of our training has On the move ______________________4 and national political front, a change in improved is borne out in the high levels of Major Milestones at Groote Schuur ____6 health ministers brings new opportunities academic achievement by our students. 30 years of the Medical 10 Race_______9 for constructive engagement and Research remains firmly on the collaboration with the public health Faculty’s agenda and we now boast 20 Faculty News system. Throughout, the Faculty of Health research units and groups. In addition, six Noakes receives Order of Mapungubwe Sciences has maintained an of SA’s A-rated scientists from President Kgalema Motlanthe____5 even keel and has continued are in the Faculty; and of New cardiovascular genetics to teach and support South the 51 National Research laboratory ________________________5 Africa’s future health care Foundation chairs UCT man leads international asthma group ______________________7 practitioners with the level awarded in 2007, eight are Prof Vanessa Burch notches up a of excellence which has in our faculty. In recent first______________________________7 been our hallmark for years, there has been an June 2008—a bumper crop of PhDs____8 almost a century. exponential increase in A celebration of Our commitment to Dean, Professor Marian Jacobs. the numbers of PhD and Solms wins top prize _______________11 improving health care and Masters graduates, and Gillian is our “Brain of Brains”_______13 strengthening health systems in the there is a growing interest in our Honours region, the country and across the African programmes, which serves as a taproot for Inaugural lectures continent remains firm and is amply further research development. While Diane McIntyre, Alastair Millar, Anna- illustrated by several new initiatives. maintaining our tradition of research Lise Williamson, Alan Morris _______14 Across the Faculty, academic staff enjoy excellence, we continue to enjoy Publications research partnerships and collaboration international recognition in areas which For the love of the written word _____15 with counterparts in almost every country range from genomics and vaccine The slave has overcome—autobiography in Sub Saharan Africa and support for development at the bench, to clinical by William Pick __________________15 strengthening capacity for clinical service research and epidemiological studies in and institutions takes various forms. These the field. Reunions and Alumni News include provision of clinical fellowships Transformation within the student In Memorium _____________________8 for African specialist clinicians, direct and staff bodies has proceeded apace, but Three generations of doctors _________9 involvement in curriculum development more than that, a great deal of effort has UCT alumna heads way, way down and teaching methods, and – most recently gone into the transformation of the under … all the way to Antarctica____10 Alumnus’ minimally invasive chest - a partnership with the national and faculty’s culture and its practices. op performed in SA________________11 provincial departments of health to We continue to practice the same high UCT memorabilia: on Main Road and provide support for the efforts of the academic standards that have on-line __________________________11 Namibian Ministry of Health to establish a characterised this faculty since its Baxter girls get together for 50th cardiac unit in that country. inception and in so doing, we remain one reunion _________________________12 We have successfully transformed our of the leading health science institutions Hayden wins Prix Galien Canada for curriculum to meet the changing health on the continent, It is our hope that you Work on Huntington’s _____________12 needs of the people of our country and to not only share our pride in our School mates stage special reunion ___13 fit the vision of the ministry of health’s achievements, but that you can continue Reunions ________________________16 priorities for healthcare. Our new to hold your head high as a graduate of the University of Cape Town’s Health Where are they now? curriculum is proving its capacity to Sciences Faculty. News of old friends and colleagues ___20 maintain the levels of excellence that TheCATHARTIC FEATURE From Greece … to Rhodesia … to South Africa … to the USA … and back to SA, with love Three medical careers have kept Dr John Brownstone enjoying life after a later- than-usual start as an “FOF” By Helen Théron Dr John Brownstone (MBChB 1963) has a favourite saying. Make that two. The first is about attitude: “Try and try again.” he says. “Never give up,” he adds, for good measure. The second is about vocation: “You must like what you do in life. I always did things I enjoyed.” It shows. At the time of writing, the eighty- eight years old Dr Brownstone was pre- paring for a long trip; an annual six- month sojourn to sunny California with his wife Dina. They’ve been married 61 years and though she has Alzheimers, he will not be parted from her. In their Sea Point apartment, their bags wait. Tomorrow a taxi will take them to Cape Town Inter- national and from there they begin a Dr John Brownstone. marathon journey to the States. ber kits after a bet for a bottle of whisky? started? He puts a finger to his mouth, There’s no wringing of hands at the It took six weeks for the first frame to go contemplatively. “The Germans came to prospect. Dr Brownstone is looking for- up and another three years to complete Greece when I was a student.” ward to it. The children are there, living the electrical work and plumbing. He’s referring to the war. By 1 June within half and hour of each other. And Yes, he’s single-minded. 1941, after the capture of Crete, all there are 11 grandchildren. And they It’s a quality that runs like a leitmotif Greece was under Axis occupation. have an apartment in a complex geared through his life. He talks about the 40th “I was a student at the University of to senior citizens. There’s so much to do. class reunion in 2003. Most of the class Thessaloniki, studying law and econom- “Look, I painted these, and these,” he are younger. When he came to UCT’s ics. My father, an English Jew by the says of the art on the apartment walls. medical school in 1958 he was already name of Brownstein, was married to a Three pictures hang on the partition 38 and married. Greek Jew. He advised me to get out. By wall he built when he created a new “On the first day the students gave the end of the war, I had no family to go bedroom for the carer Dina will have way, in deference. They didn’t know I back to. All had perished in camps like when they return. was a first-year student. I joked, telling Auschwitz.” Not bad for an old gent, says the them I was an FOF. They were im- It was part of near total extermina- humour in his eyes. pressed, until I explained it stood for tion of Greece’s 80 000-strong Jewish Did I know that in 1977 he built two father-of-five!” community during war. houses with his own hands? From tim- What took him so long to get When Athens fell to the Germans on 2 TheCATHARTIC 27 April 1941, Dr Brownstone was on can accent!” But mental health services were Mytilini. He fled to Istanbul, Turkey, in Without any formal English training, decentralised and patients were sent a small boat, a rough journey that lasted he went back to school in Rhodesia, home, resulting in the advent of commu- three days. studying with Cambridge-trained chem- nity clinics. In the end, Dr Brownstone was the istry and physics tutors. By 60, Brownstone needed another only Jew from his village who survived. “I’d left school 20 years before!” challenge. He left psychiatry and trained After joining the Allied war effort he The subjects were essential for medi- as an anaesthetist at Tennessee in Mem- was trained by Battle of Britain pilots cal studies he planned at UCT. With phis. “I have to like something, other- and sent to the former Rhodesia as a Dina and his young family, Dr Brown- wise I can’t do it.” flight instructor for the Royal Air Force. stone set his sights on an MBChB, gradu- Brownstone practiced anaesthesiol- With nothing to go back to he re- ating in 1963. ogy for 12 years, becoming head of de- mained in Rhodesia after the war, open- It wasn’t all study. He recalls partment in a 100-bed hospital. ing a company to grade tobacco. His moonlighting for picnics with Dina In 1977 the local newspaper Hart- father had been a banker and a tobacco when the weather was good. ford Courant carried a report on Dr merchant. This was how he gleaned his But that was just the beginning. Brownstone’s two self-built houses on knowledge about Turkish tobacco, Moving to the States, Dr Brownstone adjoining plots.