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Celebrating 100 Years of Health Sciences
T
he Medical School of 1912 has grown into
a 21st-century Faculty of Health Sciences,
comprising a range of health disciplines including
basic, clinical, rehabilitation and public health
sciences. The current-day mission of the faculty is
to address health challenges by promoting quality
and equity in healthcare services, educating health
practitioners for life and undertaking cutting-edge,
relevant research. The reach and impact is extensive
as the faculty keeps pace with global approaches
to academic health sciences, accelerating efforts
to improve health on our continent, and building a
future through which we will sustain our contributions
to health throughout the world. With a modernised
curriculum, the demographic profile is transformed
and the admissions of students from all corners of
our country and beyond have increased substantially.
Increasingly, the faculty’s staff, like that of the rest
of the university, enjoys an international reputation
for excellence, and graduates continue to make their
mark in the world.
Amongst the more than 70 centenary-branded events
held during 2012 were a number of research-related
activities. These included the inaugural Wolfson
Memorial Colloquium, with a keynote address titled
A New Agenda for Global Health
by Baron Peter Piot,
Professor of Global Health and Director of the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A centenary
academic debate was held on the topic ‘
Cholesterol
is not an important risk factor for heart disease and
current dietary recommendations do more harm than
good
’, with arguments from UCT’s Professor Tim
Noakes (proponent) and Dr Jacques Rossouw of the
National Institutes of Health in the USA. A a community
partnership event and a more focused community-
collaboration event highlighting the faculty’s work with
the Masiphumelele region, titled
Masiphumelele –
Bringing science to the community
, and hosted by the
Desmond Tutu HIV Centre. A centenary edition of the
South African Medical Journal
was created to showcase
some of the academic highlights from the faculty over
the last century, as well as its more recent research.
One of the key messages that the centenary celebrations
conveyed was that the faculty has ‘a prestigious
reputation for medical achievement and cutting-edge
research that has impacted on health globally’. Over
the next pages, we share achievements of the Faculty
of Health Sciences and flagship university health-
related research initiatives.
In 2012 the Faculty of Health Sciences celebrated a century of extraordinary
growth, achievement and excellence in advancing health, nationally and globally.
This milestone marked the passing of one hundred years since the opening of the
first medical school buildings on the Hiddingh Campus on 6 June 1912. UCT has
the oldest medical school in sub-Saharan Africa, and has educated some of the
finest minds in the country. We have also produced some of the greatest medical
advances to arise from Africa, such as the first test of its kind for pregnancy, the
first successful heart transplant, and the research that led to the development of
the computerised tomography (CAT) scanner.
The reach and impact is extensive as the
faculty keeps pace with global approaches
to academic health sciences, accelerating
efforts to improve health on our continent,
and building a future through which we
will sustain our contributions to health
throughout the world.
The late Emeritus Professor Chris Barnard who
performed the world’s first successful heart transplant
in 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital.