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March 2015
RECENT EVENTS
EBOLA COLLOQUIUM, 19 FEBRUARY 2015
The Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics got off to a flying start this year when it hosted an excellent Ebola Colloquium together with the School of Public Health on 19 February 2015. Dr Andrew Madina-Marino, Extraordinary Lecturer at the School of Health Systems and Public Health at the University of Pretoria, from MSF, presented the ethical dilemmas that he confronted in Liberia from the Médecins Sans Frontières point of view. This was followed by a response from Professor Ian Sanne who took the lead in terms of the South African response in West Africa. Both presenters were saluted for their powerful humanitarian contributions at the coal face. The Colloquium, which was held at the School of Public Health Resource Centre, drew a record crowd and was chaired by Professor Laetitia Rispel.
Photograph: Professor Laetitia Rispel, Dr Andrew Madina-Marno, Jillian Gardner, Professors Ames Dhai, Ian Sanne
INCLEN TRUST INTERNATIONAL GLOBAL MEETING: 20 – 22 FEBRUARY, 2015
In 1980, the Rockefeller Foundation began a bridge programme between clinical medicine and public health which became one of the most ambitious and unique health care research networks worldwide. INCLEN is present in 34 countries, with units in 91 medical institutions/universities and has more than 1800 members. These units conduct locally relevant research projects and run academic programmes in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics, social health sciences, medical informatics and other key specialties to create the finest
quality of health researchers in the world. In the last 35 years, INCLEN members have transformed medical education in most countries, with the inclusion of research methodology, evidence-based medicine and health technology assessments in their medical curriculums.
The XXI Global INCLEN Meeting which took place from 20 to 22 February 2015, was an effort to invigorate the functioning of the network to achieve the original goal of INCLEN: the improvement in global health by way of research and capacity building. In an attempt to refocus the network, five thematic groups (Child Health; Maternal and Reproductive Health; Mental Health; Injuries and Violence and Diabetics and Metabolic Syndrome) were established to develop and execute high impact research projects of global relevance. The platform of the thematic groups will facilitate the renewal and development of lasting professional relationships across the network and will create the milieu for credible collaborative research. These thematic groups will also stimulate need based network expansion and attract wider participation within and outside INCLEN membership.
BUILDING THE COSTLY HUMAN BRAIN: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF CHILDHOOD AND THE ORIGINS OF DIABETES, 25 February 2015
The MRC/Wits Development Pathways for Health Research Unit (DPHRU) and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development presented a lecture by Professor Christopher Kuzawa, Anthropologist, University of Northwestern, US, in the frame of their series of public seminars on the Evolutionary Biology of Human Development and Health.
In his talk entitled Building the costly human brain: implications for the evolution of childhood and the origins of diabetes, Professor Kuzawa presented his and colleague’s recent results around the implication of the energy costs of human brain on growth and metabolism. Using brain imaging data, they showed that brain energy demands peaks at 4-5 years of age when neuronal connections expands with learning and cognitive development. In addition, they found that the rate of body weight growth is slowest at ages when the brain is most costly and is fastest when the brain is least costly. It suggests that human’s unique characteristic of slow and prolonged linear growth during childhood could be an evolutionary strategy to conserve resources and to feed the “unusually high costs of our brain development”. Finally, Professor Kuzawa opened discussions around a new hypothesis on the evolution and origins of diabetes. He and his colleagues postulated that the diabetes-causing condition of insulin resistance, wherein muscle tissue’s uptake of glucose is lowered, could be a strategy to prioritise the use of glucose for the brain over other tissues during the childhood peak in brain glucose needs.
SPECIAL VISITORS TO THE ADLER MUSEUM OF MEDICINE
The Adler Museum was delighted to welcome Michael Butterworth, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology in the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, who is visiting South Africa to attend the World Congress of Nephrology conference in Cape Town from 13 to 17 March 2015. He took the opportunity to stop over in Johannesburg and presented a seminar in the Department of Nephrology about his work investigating the regulation of the epithelial sodium channel in the kidney. For more information about his research please visit: www.drmichaelbutterworth.com
Interestingly, Professor Butterworth is the son-in-law of the late Len Miller and Tina Miller who continue to support the Miller Foundation established by Len’s father and mother, the Michael and Janie Miller Foundation. One of the first Miller Foundation visiting fellows was Thomas Starzl who performed the first kidney transplant in South Africa. Starzl moved to Pittsburgh and continued his pioneering work in transplant surgery, and is one Pitt's most respected faculty. A new website has been set up to detail the accomplishments of Thomas Starzl and can be found here: http://www.starzl.pitt.edu/
In a further link between the Miller Foundation and Pittsburgh, Professor Butterworth’s laboratory and office are located in the Thomas Starzl Biomedical Science Tower!
Wits renal specialist, Professor Saraladevi Naicker, will attend the Congress of Nephrology which will be co-hosted by the South African Renal Society, of which she is the President. Held in collaboration with the International Society of Nephrology, it is the first time that this prestigious meeting will be held in Africa.
For more information please see: Wits Weekly issue: 9: 11 March 2015 Photo: Professor Michael Butterworth, Mrs Tina Miller, Mr Woolf Lack, Trustee of the Michael and Janie Miller Fund ______________________________________________________________________________________________
THE DEPARTMENT OF NURSING EDUCATION GOES CAMPING!
Patricia Apfel writes: ‘A team from the Department of Nursing Education departed from Wits Medical School on 27 February and returned on 1 March for a “Fear Factor Camp”. Staff members, members of the Nursing Students’ Council and third year nursing students joined the new intake of first year students for this adventure. We travelled to the Cyara Youth for Christ Camp on Friday afternoon with a bus full of shy, timid first years and returned with a buzzing, enthusiastic, confident bus of young people. The camp was aimed at helping new students face some of their fears and the challenges faced in the first year of university life. The programme was filled with fun activities, games and competitions as the students formed tribal teams to compete.
An obstacle course was set up with fun filled obstacles over a distance of 1km which tested them physically and mentally. All they needed was the will have to have an insane amount of fun. Nothing beats the feeling of satisfactory team work and completing the race. The highlight of the weekend was the “Stage Fright” competition where a host of talents were demonstrated and enjoyed. Well done to all!
The students were encouraged to scratch beneath the surface and discover more about themselves during workshops about communication, culture, discovering one’s self and understanding one’s own philosophies and values. Invited guests and staff members presented workshops and the Head of Department, Professor Lize Maree, joined the students for lunch and a psychosocial event.
We are confident that the experience has helped students to form support networks amongst themselves and has given them an extra boost of confidence to face the journey ahead.’ ___________________________________________________________________________________
OBITUARY: PROFESSOR HARRY STEIN (1925-2015)
It is with great sadness that we record the death of Professor Harry Stein, who died in England at the age of 89 last month. Professor Stein was the head of neonatology and paediatrics at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto and was appointed Professor of Paediatrics at Wits in 1977, and Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in a career that spanned 37 years.
At the time, Bara was one of the largest hospitals in the world and was the only one serving Soweto, with a population of more than 1.5 million and was a referral centre for the whole country. It had 400 children's beds and treated 100 000 child outpatients a year. About 17 000 babies were delivered there each year. There were very high rates of low birth weight and premature delivery and many infants and children suffered from malnutrition.
Most of Stein's research concerned the treatment of low birth weight babies, some of whom were truly premature and others who were dysmature ie. born at term but very small babies and showed that amongst the black population there were more low birth weight babies (dysmature for age) than premature babies. His work on malnutrition focused on the associated gastro- intestinal and immunological problems. He was one of the first doctors to focus on the question of immunology and study the use and efficacy of antibiotics in the treatment of these infections. He was an excellent clinical researcher and was one of the first doctors to identify and describe finger clubbing as a sign of cirrhosis which he published in The Lancet. He also identified and wrote a number of papers, which included idiopathic cardiomyopathy and reno-occlusive disease in children.
Stein was born in a farming community in Mpumalanga on June 8 1925. After matriculating at Forest High School, he studied medicine at Wits, graduating in 1949. He specialised in paediatrics in London and Edinburgh, then returned to South Africa, paying his way as a ship's doctor on a cargo vessel. He became a paediatric registrar at Bara in 1954 and, apart from seven years – including private practice and other positions, remained there until his retirement in 1987. Even during the 1976 Soweto uprisings he never missed a day. He frequently clashed with the apartheid authorities over the unjust treatment of black people and their attempts to reduce resources for Bara.
For him, being a doctor was a vocation, not just a job. As a clinician, academic and scientist, he had the highest standards and expectations, but was always sensitive to junior doctors and interns and had a profound influence on generations of young doctors. He was an inspiring role model and many of his students went on to hold top positions in paediatrics and child health in South Africa and overseas. After retiring at 62, he moved to the UK to be near his children. He spent five years there as a consultant community paediatrician in London. He developed spinal stenosis and spent the last few years of his life in a wheelchair. He is survived by his wife, Yvonne, and three children to whom we extend the sincere condolences of the Faculty. ____________________________________________________________________________________
CONGRATULATIONS!
WITS SELECTED AS SAMRC CANCER CENTRE
Wits University is one of three tertiary institutions in the country selected by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) to establish a new Clinical Cancer Research Centre. This initiative, spearheaded by the SAMRC, will see an investment of more than R37 million over five years for cancer research at Wits, the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
Coming shortly after commemorating World Cancer Day on 4 February, the centres are the SAMRC’s response to tackling one of the country’s and the world’s leading causes of illness and death.
Professor Paul Ruff, Head of the Division of Medical Oncology at the University and the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, will head the MRC/Wits Common Epithelial Cancer Research Centre, which will be an exciting collaboration between the Medical Oncology and Surgery Departments at Wits, as well as at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital,
the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre as well as the National Cancer Registry.
For further information please see: Wits Weekly issue 7, 23 February 2015 ____________________________________________________________________________________
INVITATIONS
__________________________________________________________________
PRIORITISING HEALTH EXPENDITURES ON THE ROAD TO NHI
Renowned UK health economist, Professor Tony Culyer, will deliver this lecture. Hailing from York
University in the UK, Culyer is joining Wits until 28 March 2015 as a Visiting Distinguished Professor.
During his visit, he will deliver the lecture and undertake visits to various Wits facilities, coordinated by the
PRICELESS-SA unit in the Wits School of Public Health.
Date: 23 March 2015
Time: 17:00
Venue: Resource Centre, School of Public Health, Parktown Education Campus
RSVP: [email protected] or 011 717 1194
FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES
The Dean, Professor Martin Veller, cordially invites you to
attend the
Annual Awards Ceremony
Date: 8 April 2015
Time: 16:00
Venue: The Linder Auditorium,
Parktown Education Campus
PROGRAMME
1. Introductory remarks by the MC: Professor J Mahlangu
2. Welcome by the Dean: Professor M Veller
3. Guest Speaker: Professor Lynn Morris
4. Presentation of prizes and awards
- Major Faculty Awards
- Postgraduate Awards
- Undergraduate Awards
5. Refreshments: Space Frame, Linder Auditorium
COURSE/WORKSHOPS/SEMINARS
Advanced Clinical HIV Management course at Wits RHI The aim of this course is to provide doctors with regional HIV treatment knowledge and expertise, by developing clinicians’ abilities to effectively manage HIV complications and provide leadership in HIV prevention, treatment and care. The course is full time, Monday to Friday, for two weeks (7h45 – 17h00) in Johannesburg. Daily attendance is compulsory. Dates for 2015:
06 – 17 July 2015
09 – 20 November 2015
Application dates: 02-27 March 2015 APPLICANT PROFILE The minimum criteria to apply:
A medical degree as a minimum level of acceptance
Experience in the field of HIV Management and treatment
Willingness and ability to apply knowledge in current work situation and future career.
SELECTION CRITERIA
Entry on to the course is subject to:
meeting the above mentioned applicant profile
a pre-assessment minimum 70% achievement, as well as
a selection committee decision FEES/COSTS The total course fees are ZAR 9000. This includes:
An amount of R8000 covering costs of all materials, facilitators, certificates, lunch and other refreshments during the course.
An additional non-refundable deposit fee of R1000.
Fees are payable on acceptance to participate on the course. ADDITIONAL COSTS Once selected to participate on the course, participants are responsible for the following:
Accommodation
Domestic/International travel and return airport transfers (if applicable)
Visa costs (if applicable)
Travel/Medical insurance (if applicable)
Other costs while on the course: laundry, telephone charges, room service/ additional meals not covered by the course etc.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
Should you feel that you meet the minimum requirements for entry on the course and are able to fund your participation, please request further information from the programme co-ordinator Tshepo Mashao using the following contact details: [email protected] ____________________________________________________________________________________
Workshops / Seminars offered in March/April 2015
10 March 2015: Useful information for newly appointed academics
13:30-16:00: CHSE Boardroom (3N08)
27 March 2015: Journal Club
12:00-13:00: CHSE Boardroom (3N08)
01 April 2015: PBL Facilitator workshop
08:30-14:00: CHSE Boardroom (3N08)
Please contact Norman Motlhabani for bookings:
011 717 2329 or [email protected]
And
Professor Patricia Mc Inerney for more information:
011 717 2073 or [email protected]
____________________________________________________________________________
And finally …
Health Sciences Review is published mid-month every
month.
The next issue will appear on 17 April 2015
Deadline for submission of information and pictures:
15 April 2015
Please send information to:
[email protected] or [email protected]
Wits Med School parody to the song Rude
Have a look at this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8uHU1J9QEE
