NEWS PAGE : May - July 2019
On this page the oldest postings are first,
but the most up-to-date postings will be found on the next page
and as suggested by Alan Silbert, the most recent will be on top.
Trevor Kaye:
My journey/story is best told on my website www.drtrevorkaye.com and includes lots of photos.
Michael Nochomovitz:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-nochomovitz-51932459
I have been in healthcare management for sometime in the US following training and working in Pulmonary/Critical Care.
My journey took me from Ohio to New York where I most recently oversaw the regionalization of New York Presbyterian (Columbia and Weill Cornell).
I am now engaged in venture backed healthcare delivery based in NY but enjoying the Ohio “country” and visiting our first grandson in Alexandria, Virginia (suburban Washington DC). Last in Cape Town a year ago and as always felt “spoken to” by the natural beauty.
Feel free to let me know if any classmates are passing through New York City.
Best wishes
Michael
Updated note:
It is amazing to hear about people’s lives and achievements.
Bravest of all are those who can share unspeakable challenges and their incredible path to recovery in the broadest sense.
Thank you Jenny for sharing.
Looking forward to the 50th.
Michael
Alexander Moll:
Thanks for this!
I hope that this idea takes root. I would guess that a lot of us are now entering a reflective time and being able to hear about our friends and colleagues from years gone by will help us with some sense of fulfillment, possibly, or just be a fun opportunity to catch up.
I am cutting back my practice, but struggling with the idea of quitting entirely. This may be a common problem, I don’t know. I am reading more non-medical books, doing more gardening and hoping that some of this will help fill the void that I expect when I stop work entirely!
I’ll write again with some bio details etc. Must quit now - lunch time !
All the best,
Alex
[email protected]
John Odell:
I retired 2013 and then was asked to do lung transplant call one week a month, which I did for the next three years. Interestingly, I did a transplant every week I was on call. I finally retired completely, when I was asked to do donor call, in June 2016. I did not want to end my career in this way and am enjoying my time not tied to a beeper.
I travel to Africa every year and last year I visited Zambia. Loved it so much that I am going again this year. It is like Botswana was 10 years ago.
We have a small flat near the Peak District in the UK and travel there regularly. Last year we spent 5 months there. I am currently in Atlanta airport waiting for a flight to Manchester.
I do not sail as much as I thought I would and am currently selling my Island Packet 320. If anyone is in the market please contact me.
I play golf regularly and last year played at St Andrews and Pinehurst. TPC Sawgrass with the famous Island green is about 5 miles away from where I live. Nothing spectacular planned this year.
Meet Walter Leventhal and Leonie Gordon at least once a year in Charleston where we play golf together. They still are working.
Best wishes to all.
John
David Gordon:
Good to hear from you.
Yes I am still here and working full time in general practice.
Hope you are well.
Best wishes.
David
London UK and still a member of the EU!
Charles Swanepoel:
Great idea. Will be in contact once I return from Aussie where I am attending the World Congress of Nephrology in Melbourne.
In fact, depart tomorrow. So yes, still working and am a council member of the International Society of Nephrology.
Best wishes
Charles.
Colin Geft:
I am still an active pediatrician in Toronto having started my practice in 1980 I am still enthusiastic and very involved in my patients wellbeing.
Interestingly I married a Montreal girl who was visiting Johannesburg in 1976. I moved to Johannesburg to do my Pediatrics and left for Toronto in 1977. Best wishes and Chag Sameach
Colin
Margie Stanford (Anderson):
I am also still a Londoner, but retired now 3 years, from Anaesthetics - which I LOVED!
Have eventually got the hang of retirement - holidaying a lot, volunteer work a lot and love time with my 2 boys, daughter-in-law and 2 Grandchildren a lot.
Best wishes all
Margie
Addendum:
Love all these messages.
And it was such a wonderful surprise to bump into Alan in Johannesburg. Sadly not long enough to have a proper chat.
Updated:
So good to read your resumes of current and past experiences.
Really really looking forward to our 50th Reunion. I will definitely be there - God willing.
I loved loved every moment (almost) of my career as an anaesthetist in the suburbs of London. How blessed we are to have been able to be in such a rewarding environment, and being able to make a positive difference to people's lives, at a difficult time for them.
And I was blessed also with 2 gorgeous boys and now 2 equally gorgeous grandchildren - about to arrive any moment, with their parents, from Nottingham, for a weekend of Birthday fun - with extended family and the sights of London.
Till our next Reunion
Best wishes all
Margie
Alan McDonald:
Great to hear from you.
My wife, Jackie, and I were briefly in South Africa just last month, mainly to visit my 98-year-old mother who is barely hanging on in Knysna. We had a great time on holiday in Kwazulu-Natal as well.
Passing through, I managed to bump into Margie Stanford in Johannesburg Airport (as one does....) whilst there and surprised myself and her, too, by recognising her instantly and recalling her name.
I’m fine, and am still living in Sutton Coldfield where I was a GP for thirty years. Lots of grandchildren.
I’m still doing some court work for the Tribunals Service, dealing with people whose applications for medical benefits have failed. I’ll wind this up in a few months.
I think about our class a lot.
Best wishes,
Alan
Craig Househam:
I retired in 2015 as Head of the Western Cape Department of Health after leaving academic paediatrics in 1995 to embark on a managerial career. I have served on two national ministerial task teams subsequently in the public health sector and done consultant work for Deloitte and various other private sector entities. Currently I serve on the boards of the South African Health Product Regulatory Authority (old MCC) and St Luke’s Hospice.
I am enjoying retirement without the pressures of management of a large organisation. I remarried in 2011 and my wife and I enjoy traveling both in and out of South Africa. My passion is Harley Davidson motorcycles of which I have three which I ride locally and long distance.
Great initiative that you have undertaken.
Kind regards
Craig
[email protected]
Updated
Thanks to Peter Schutte for the MSC photos (see photo section) in which I stand in the back row of the 1970/1971 photo with my name characteristically misspell! Of interest in this photo is the presence of Geoff Budlender, a fellow third-year student, who at the end of that year changed his studies from medicine to law despite passing all his third year subjects well. He has gone on to build an illustrious career as a human rights lawyer in South Africa representing parties as senior counsel in many landmark cases. I have always admired his courage and resolve to change the direction of his life so decisively halfway through the arduous medical under graduate degree.
Regards
Craig
Saville Furman:
I have a son and 2 grand daughters in Melbourne.
Still in “Active” family practice.
Will continue do till I am 92!!!
Found Pics of our honeymoon on Pendennis Castle Dec 1973 when I had a waistline, 30 kg lighter and a full scalp of brown hair!!!
Warm regards
Saville
Louise Irving (Berkowicz):
What a lovely idea to get everyone reconnected. Thanks Live in Seattle USA Still working part time, having practiced lots of difference aspects of medicine. Now doing mind body medicine with energy work in a hospital setup and my new interest is heart centered hypnotherapy. We travel lots. Regularly come back to Cape Town which I love . We have 2 sons, daughter in law and one probable daughter in law and 3 grand dogs. Come to Seattle to visit, welcome to stay with us.
Love
Louise
Rob Dyer:
I’m still in Durban and still working in Cardiology private practice. We live in Summerveld (just outside Durban) with 2 dogs and 5 horses (of which we’re trying to sell 3).
For my sins, I’ve agreed to be the scientific convener for this years’ SA Heart Congress which is to be held in conjunction with PASCAR, the Pan African Society of Cardiology. The theme is “Cardiac care- Meeting the needs of Africa” - anyone who has any ideas is more than welcome to share them!!!
Regards
Rob
Robert Kaplan:
For my day job, I am a forensic psychiatrist. I occupy my time as a writer with two books coming out shortly to make a total of five; The King who Strangled his Psychiatrist and Other Dark Tales should be out this year. I am also working on a book on the psychiatrist Aubrey Levin, currently on parole in Calgary, Canada. I go on radio and get occasional gigs on crime documentaries which is not as much fun as it seems.
As far as I know I am the only one to publish an article on the Class of ’73, see below; I leave it to readers to judge whether it has any merit.
I go back to SA twice a year, which is marvelous, and have an honorary teaching position at the Department of History, Stellenbosch University.
The saddest thing about this correspondence is that so many live in other countries but that is nature of history.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it will take several lifetimes to understand the nature of doctors and illness, but it’s been worth trying so far.
Best wishes to all.
Rob
--
Robert M Kaplan
Forensic Psychiatrist
Clinical Associate Professor
Graduate School of Medicine
University of Wollongong
[email protected]
My journey/story is best told on my website www.drtrevorkaye.com and includes lots of photos.
Michael Nochomovitz:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-nochomovitz-51932459
I have been in healthcare management for sometime in the US following training and working in Pulmonary/Critical Care.
My journey took me from Ohio to New York where I most recently oversaw the regionalization of New York Presbyterian (Columbia and Weill Cornell).
I am now engaged in venture backed healthcare delivery based in NY but enjoying the Ohio “country” and visiting our first grandson in Alexandria, Virginia (suburban Washington DC). Last in Cape Town a year ago and as always felt “spoken to” by the natural beauty.
Feel free to let me know if any classmates are passing through New York City.
Best wishes
Michael
Updated note:
It is amazing to hear about people’s lives and achievements.
Bravest of all are those who can share unspeakable challenges and their incredible path to recovery in the broadest sense.
Thank you Jenny for sharing.
Looking forward to the 50th.
Michael
Alexander Moll:
Thanks for this!
I hope that this idea takes root. I would guess that a lot of us are now entering a reflective time and being able to hear about our friends and colleagues from years gone by will help us with some sense of fulfillment, possibly, or just be a fun opportunity to catch up.
I am cutting back my practice, but struggling with the idea of quitting entirely. This may be a common problem, I don’t know. I am reading more non-medical books, doing more gardening and hoping that some of this will help fill the void that I expect when I stop work entirely!
I’ll write again with some bio details etc. Must quit now - lunch time !
All the best,
Alex
[email protected]
John Odell:
I retired 2013 and then was asked to do lung transplant call one week a month, which I did for the next three years. Interestingly, I did a transplant every week I was on call. I finally retired completely, when I was asked to do donor call, in June 2016. I did not want to end my career in this way and am enjoying my time not tied to a beeper.
I travel to Africa every year and last year I visited Zambia. Loved it so much that I am going again this year. It is like Botswana was 10 years ago.
We have a small flat near the Peak District in the UK and travel there regularly. Last year we spent 5 months there. I am currently in Atlanta airport waiting for a flight to Manchester.
I do not sail as much as I thought I would and am currently selling my Island Packet 320. If anyone is in the market please contact me.
I play golf regularly and last year played at St Andrews and Pinehurst. TPC Sawgrass with the famous Island green is about 5 miles away from where I live. Nothing spectacular planned this year.
Meet Walter Leventhal and Leonie Gordon at least once a year in Charleston where we play golf together. They still are working.
Best wishes to all.
John
David Gordon:
Good to hear from you.
Yes I am still here and working full time in general practice.
Hope you are well.
Best wishes.
David
London UK and still a member of the EU!
Charles Swanepoel:
Great idea. Will be in contact once I return from Aussie where I am attending the World Congress of Nephrology in Melbourne.
In fact, depart tomorrow. So yes, still working and am a council member of the International Society of Nephrology.
Best wishes
Charles.
Colin Geft:
I am still an active pediatrician in Toronto having started my practice in 1980 I am still enthusiastic and very involved in my patients wellbeing.
Interestingly I married a Montreal girl who was visiting Johannesburg in 1976. I moved to Johannesburg to do my Pediatrics and left for Toronto in 1977. Best wishes and Chag Sameach
Colin
Margie Stanford (Anderson):
I am also still a Londoner, but retired now 3 years, from Anaesthetics - which I LOVED!
Have eventually got the hang of retirement - holidaying a lot, volunteer work a lot and love time with my 2 boys, daughter-in-law and 2 Grandchildren a lot.
Best wishes all
Margie
Addendum:
Love all these messages.
And it was such a wonderful surprise to bump into Alan in Johannesburg. Sadly not long enough to have a proper chat.
Updated:
So good to read your resumes of current and past experiences.
Really really looking forward to our 50th Reunion. I will definitely be there - God willing.
I loved loved every moment (almost) of my career as an anaesthetist in the suburbs of London. How blessed we are to have been able to be in such a rewarding environment, and being able to make a positive difference to people's lives, at a difficult time for them.
And I was blessed also with 2 gorgeous boys and now 2 equally gorgeous grandchildren - about to arrive any moment, with their parents, from Nottingham, for a weekend of Birthday fun - with extended family and the sights of London.
Till our next Reunion
Best wishes all
Margie
Alan McDonald:
Great to hear from you.
My wife, Jackie, and I were briefly in South Africa just last month, mainly to visit my 98-year-old mother who is barely hanging on in Knysna. We had a great time on holiday in Kwazulu-Natal as well.
Passing through, I managed to bump into Margie Stanford in Johannesburg Airport (as one does....) whilst there and surprised myself and her, too, by recognising her instantly and recalling her name.
I’m fine, and am still living in Sutton Coldfield where I was a GP for thirty years. Lots of grandchildren.
I’m still doing some court work for the Tribunals Service, dealing with people whose applications for medical benefits have failed. I’ll wind this up in a few months.
I think about our class a lot.
Best wishes,
Alan
Craig Househam:
I retired in 2015 as Head of the Western Cape Department of Health after leaving academic paediatrics in 1995 to embark on a managerial career. I have served on two national ministerial task teams subsequently in the public health sector and done consultant work for Deloitte and various other private sector entities. Currently I serve on the boards of the South African Health Product Regulatory Authority (old MCC) and St Luke’s Hospice.
I am enjoying retirement without the pressures of management of a large organisation. I remarried in 2011 and my wife and I enjoy traveling both in and out of South Africa. My passion is Harley Davidson motorcycles of which I have three which I ride locally and long distance.
Great initiative that you have undertaken.
Kind regards
Craig
[email protected]
Updated
Thanks to Peter Schutte for the MSC photos (see photo section) in which I stand in the back row of the 1970/1971 photo with my name characteristically misspell! Of interest in this photo is the presence of Geoff Budlender, a fellow third-year student, who at the end of that year changed his studies from medicine to law despite passing all his third year subjects well. He has gone on to build an illustrious career as a human rights lawyer in South Africa representing parties as senior counsel in many landmark cases. I have always admired his courage and resolve to change the direction of his life so decisively halfway through the arduous medical under graduate degree.
Regards
Craig
Saville Furman:
I have a son and 2 grand daughters in Melbourne.
Still in “Active” family practice.
Will continue do till I am 92!!!
Found Pics of our honeymoon on Pendennis Castle Dec 1973 when I had a waistline, 30 kg lighter and a full scalp of brown hair!!!
Warm regards
Saville
Louise Irving (Berkowicz):
What a lovely idea to get everyone reconnected. Thanks Live in Seattle USA Still working part time, having practiced lots of difference aspects of medicine. Now doing mind body medicine with energy work in a hospital setup and my new interest is heart centered hypnotherapy. We travel lots. Regularly come back to Cape Town which I love . We have 2 sons, daughter in law and one probable daughter in law and 3 grand dogs. Come to Seattle to visit, welcome to stay with us.
Love
Louise
Rob Dyer:
I’m still in Durban and still working in Cardiology private practice. We live in Summerveld (just outside Durban) with 2 dogs and 5 horses (of which we’re trying to sell 3).
For my sins, I’ve agreed to be the scientific convener for this years’ SA Heart Congress which is to be held in conjunction with PASCAR, the Pan African Society of Cardiology. The theme is “Cardiac care- Meeting the needs of Africa” - anyone who has any ideas is more than welcome to share them!!!
Regards
Rob
Robert Kaplan:
For my day job, I am a forensic psychiatrist. I occupy my time as a writer with two books coming out shortly to make a total of five; The King who Strangled his Psychiatrist and Other Dark Tales should be out this year. I am also working on a book on the psychiatrist Aubrey Levin, currently on parole in Calgary, Canada. I go on radio and get occasional gigs on crime documentaries which is not as much fun as it seems.
As far as I know I am the only one to publish an article on the Class of ’73, see below; I leave it to readers to judge whether it has any merit.
I go back to SA twice a year, which is marvelous, and have an honorary teaching position at the Department of History, Stellenbosch University.
The saddest thing about this correspondence is that so many live in other countries but that is nature of history.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it will take several lifetimes to understand the nature of doctors and illness, but it’s been worth trying so far.
Best wishes to all.
Rob
--
Robert M Kaplan
Forensic Psychiatrist
Clinical Associate Professor
Graduate School of Medicine
University of Wollongong
[email protected]
Francois Debruin:
I sincerely appreciate being included in your distribution list, as I missed the last class reunion not being on the on the list.
Thanks for taking the trouble to look at the 2013 reunion booklet.
I am still in contact with Giep Pienaar, Martin Jaffe and Robert Kaplan should you require their particulars. I also had a practice till 2000 with another class mate, Roy Williams and may be able to get hold of him if you do not have his particulars.
I am still working, albeit at a much lower level since the start of this year.
I am on leave till 30 April in Ozzie, but will look at the website as soon as I am able.
I have none of the photos of our class with me, and must confess that I cannot remember you, however I was not well connected as I was one of the small Afrikaans speaking group and came from the Transvaal, Ermelo! I will certainly look for you on our class photo once back. I was also in Med Res. You could send me a pic of you taken recently.
I attach the only picture of me from my phone (standing in the middle with my wife and brother) taken in Rotorua where I lived for 19 years. For 13 years before that I worked as radiologist in Gisborne, a beautiful town on the east coast of NZ.
I take it, that there will not be a class reunion 2023? How about earlier?
Thanks again for taking the trouble contacting me.
Kindest regards,
Francois
Jeffrey Wollach:
Thanks for including me in the email.
I have spent the last half and hour thinking of my happy time at UCT with the class of 73 . Very nostalgic. A very sad thing is that almost half the class has left RSA.
After my one year compulsory service in the army I was called up a year later to go to Angola.
I was determined NOT to put on that uniform again. I was also not going to spend 2 years in jail - so emigration was my only option.
The saddest day of my life was leaving the beloved RSA.
When I went to the website I noted no mention of Simon Groenewalt. When last I heard he was is Australia.
Is he still there?
Thanks,
Jeff
Jeffrey Wollach (addendum):
Thanks for contacting me. After an illuminating year in the South African Army, I spent six months in the UK and than wound up as a rural G.P in Saskatchewan. After 3 very cold winters I went to Halifax in Nova Scotia to do a residency in anesthesia. After a fellowship in cardio vascular anesthesia I was appointed as a staff anesthesiologist in Victoria British Columbia. (The city is on Vancouver Island halfway between Vancouver and Seattle). I have been here for 36 happy years as a cardio vascular anesthesiologist. I am now working half time and perhaps at the end of the year I may call it quits.
Victoria is the retirement capital of Canada and has a very temperate climate. One of the best places in the world to sail a small boat.
Still married to wife number one and three children have given us 4 grand children. I was back to the class reunion and it was great to see everyone.
If anyone passes though this area, please contact me.
Best wishes,
Jeff
John Sanders:
Continuing this ever lengthening email. I have been a general Paediatrician in provincial New Zealand (New Plymouth) for many years now after years in the UK and Zimbabwe. Certainly not a bad place to see out one's career. Have met up with colleagues for a number of years at the annual UCT Paediatric refresher course held at the lovely Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, though have never made it to a class reunion! Anyone travelling to these parts please look me up. Personal email is [email protected] the one on the list is my one at work.
Best wishes to all
John
Peter Patton:
Great idea to get this going
I live in Sydney and am still working
General Practice and IV Sedation
I have a wife who is an Academic at Sydney School of Nursing
I play golf regularly although not very well now
We have a holiday property at Hyams Beach, well worth visiting as it is said to have the whitest sands in the world !
There are about 10 of our class in Sydney or nearby
Regards
Peter
Lance Michell:
I’m still at GSH in Cape Town!
After doing anaesthesia I moved to Critical Care and retired in 2013 after being head of Surgical ICU at GSH for nearly 30 years. I still do occasional calls for the ICU at GSH and the UCT Private Academic Hospital.
Love it and can’t give it up.
Best wishes to you all
Lance
John Cowlin:
It is wonderful to hear what the class of 73 has been up to.I will try and add to the narrative. I see quite a lot of Pat Coghlan when he and Jackie visit Cape Town. Malcolm Cunard and his wife usually come out from the UK in January and we attend the GP refreshers course together. This year we heard two great lectures by Saville Furman and David Cameron on cyberchondria and euthenasia respectively. Robert Kaplan mentions the Department of History at Stellenbosch. I graduated there with a MA in history last year and am considering a PhD. Robert, I enjoyed your paper on the Barnard era. For the rest I still make furniture occasionally, but spend more time doing metal work, including a working model steam loco. Margie and have two children , both in Cape Town and 5 grandchildren. Good for us, but one wonders about the future with politicians like Malema and others promoting racism with impunity. In the meantime we live in Noordhoek which is peaceful, beautiful and near our children and grandchildren.What else can you hope for ??
Warm regards to you all.
John
[email protected]
Mike Madden:
Work is fun. Narrowing down private practice from colorectal surgery to proctology has made life easier. Helping at Groote Schuur and Somerset reminds me that some people can't even afford the taxi fare to the hospital, the right website usually answers the registrar’s question and experience helps to avoid mistakes. Donald Trump and Brexit help to put our load shedding and corrupt politicians in perspective.
Warm regards
Mike
Alec Goldin:
Jennifer and I have just returned from 2 weeks vacation visiting Victoria Falls, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg. So pleased and happy to hear from you and to be part of all of this. The 40th reunion was brilliant and have such fond memories of that fabulous event.
Still practising and enjoying life as a family practitioner in North London. I work one day a week in my NHS practice but practice privately during the rest of the week. Jennifer (wife of 44 years) and I are blessed with 5 grandchildren and the family get together most Friday evenings. Still enjoy flying my model aeroplanes and am learning, with difficulty, new aerobatic techniques!!
The thought of retirement and the loss of my identity frightens me. I am hugely blessed to be living in a great city (despite Brexit) surrounded by my gorgeous family.
Warm wishes and fondest regards.
Alec
Maurice Slevin:
I am a medical oncologist, in London since 1978. I toyed with Australia but this place grew on me. I got a consultant medical oncologist post at Barts hospital in 1982. I ran a solid tumour oncology ward and also had an academic post doing clinical research and had a clinical pharmacology research laboratory.
I was on the National Health Service for 30 years, also doing some private practice. In 2005 I set up a private cancer clinic called the London Oncology Clinic in Harley Street with three other colleagues and since 2008 have been there full-time. Nowadays work 4 days a week and take off Fridays when I spend some time visiting art galleries. Nowhere near thinking about retirement yet as I still enjoy what I do hugely.
I have two marriages, two divorces and three children under my belt!
I live in Notting Hill in London and take advantage of the proximity to Europe, especially Italy.
I used to go to Cape Town often when my parents were alive but now go much less often, mostly for family events.
Warmly
Maurice
Alan Atherstone:
I am still working full time as a general surgeon at Rockhampton Hospital, Queensland. I was head of Surgery at Frere Hospital, East London until the Eastern Cape Government crumbled. I moved to Australia in 2009.
I have 4 children and 7 grandkids divided between Brisbane and Cape Town. We recently returned from a holiday in South Island NZ and heading to South Africa in a few weeks time for 6 weeks.
We had lunch with Jacques Olivier (Radiologist on the Gold Coast) on Sunday. I am retiring in 5 months time. Plan then is a Lap around Australia in our caravan for a year.
Great to hear all your news.
Alan
Graeme Goldin:
Hey guys. Great to hear that most of us are still working, in good health and sound mind. No mention of enlarged prostates, altered bowel habits or arthritis.
Too balance the ledger I’ve got sciatica bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome arthritis tennis elbow rotator cuff tears and I can’t remember the names of my 4 children unless they’ve got there name badges on. Yet I’ve never felt better. I run an hour a day climb mountains hike and canoe. I stopped cycling after got run over by a truck.
I live in Sydney and am happily married with 4 kids and a granddaughter in Byron Bay.
Still working 4 days a week as a radiologist. 50 partners. Mix of hospital and private both city and rural. 3 months leave a year for adventure travel.
Remember fondly my time at UCT. Most rewarding time in medicine was my stint at Charles Johnson hospital in Zulu land.
All the best
Graeme
Jeff Barron:
Hi guys
Lovely to hear the stories, which brings your face back.
Janet & I live in north London, close to shops & public transport links. We have children & grandchildren in Perth, Brighton & close by. We entertain the 4 local grandchildren on 2 afternoons a week. Visit Perth annually.
I teach chemical pathology to medical students, medical English to refugee doctors, do locums. Recently started giving talks on ‘The diet wars, food as medicine’, because the medical students did not answer an essay well.
I practice Tai Chi daily, which was discovered through mindfulness, following a stroke while visiting friends in Vienna. Fortunately, we were directed to the stroke hospital, was thrombolysed within an hour with full recovery (UK is still an EU member).
We walk locally, recently in the Azores & next is the Vigos gorge, Greece.
I drink rooibos & coffee to keep the urine a light straw colour. Like eating interesting food.
Still remember Terry Blumenthal, who died in a MVA.
Jeff
Jacques Olivier:
Hi Trevor and everyone,
A clever initiative and fascinating to read the varied stories.
I struck it lucky, in early third year, we had two tutorials in Radiology by Dr Ernst Bass and Alan Goldin.
As we walked back to Med School, I said to our group that Radiology was definitely for me.
I wrote that week to Prof Engelbrecht at King Edward Hospital and he agreed to accept me, to join his department, 2 years after of qualifying.
I was the only medical student to ever contact him in his whole career. Times have changed and radiology has become extremely popular. We had over 80 applicants for 6 posts in our university department last year.
I qualified in radiology in Durban and had some wonderful years in private there.
Married with 3 kids we emigrated to Australia in 1987. Short stint in Tasmania then off to sunny Queensland where we settled comfortably on the Gold Coast. Six grandkids with one more on the way.
Life is busy, I work five 10 hour days a week . Still do call and its almost out of control. The department does an average of 80 CTs on a Saturday and similar number on a Sunday.
The consultants still have to check the registrars work so it can take up 10 hours a day of overtime to validate the studies.
Thoroughly enjoyed class reunion in 2013. I gave a talk on CT and was rather moved when Rob Dyer came up in break and said the following. '
"Jacques I remember the talk you gave at Edendale Hospital 40 years ago on CT. You have improved !!
I couldn't believe it. I was flattered.
We did our housemanship together at Edendale . I was sent by the physicians to spend a day at Wentworth Hospital, where they had just installed the worlds 16th EMI scanner .
I then gave a lecture on CT scanning to the department. The original CT scanners took 3 and a half minutes for one slice. Whole scan was 10 slices and patients were booked every half hour.
Rob I was very moved by your recollection, thank you it made my day.
3D volume rendering creates beautiful imagery in radiology and my job in Radiology has been a pleasure .
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's journeys; fascinating and entertaining.
I am motivated to be in Cape Town for the 50th.
Rob see you there mate!
Best wishes to all
Jacques
Eric Hassall:
A warm hello to all, thanks so much to Trevor for initiating this, and to Bolo for including me:
As I read through the list of names, I have several thoughts and feelings.
While I wish I’d got to know many of you outside my own circle a little better, I have warm feelings about our shared time in med school; camaraderie along with competition and the never-absent anxiety of the need to perform.
The warm feeling is in contrast to what I felt about events at UCT over the
last few years – the trashing of history in the halls of residence; the censorship of art on the campus; fire-bombing of the VC’s office; the craven, empty responses of UCT admin to extremists; the general feeling of dissolution, etc. The devaluing of the name ‘UCT’. I say this as a steadfastly politically liberal person.
But ag NO, NEE man, sê julle, geen politiks nie! Asseblief! OK, sure, on to other topics, then.
Among so many memories from those days, I’ll recount just a few:
- First-year. Sit-in over the Archie Mafeje issue. Us inside the Admin
Bldg, ringed by BOSS agents and hostile Maties;
- Attacked by police dogs on Jammie stairs;
- Failing anatomy until the final exam. Loving physiology and path and
clinical medicine;
- Along with hundreds of other NUSAS members, bidding farewell at
airport to Prof Raymond Hoffenberg, exiled;
- Sharing a flat in Forest Hills with Steven Perl and us walking to GSH
to go watch the second heart transplant on a Saturday afternoon;
- Our house watched, phones tapped; Steve Biko visited, asked to borrow
Steven Perl’s notes;
- Camping in the Cedarberg; frolicking on Sandy Bay; climbing the
mountain;
- Earthquake: I was in the UCT library. Back at Driekoppen, Bolo
standing outside, almost kaalgat;
- A distinguished visiting Brit prof giving us a lecture about the
subtleties, the detective work of Forensic Medicine. We go to Woodstock
morgue - first I see an entire family all deeply jaundiced, killed by
Amanita poisoning. Then a guy on a slab with an axe still in his head – not
a lot of sophisticated forensics required to determine the cause of death
there!
- Path autopsy rounds: in that small lecture theater, Prof Uys slices
open the abdomen of the unfortunate deceased, and even though I am in the
back row, the putrid pungency from that abdomen wafts up, and I gag, am
forced to leave, pronto! Cruel to have autopsy rounds right afterbreakfast! Esp since ondansetron not yet invented.
- Anthony Barker’s mission hospital in Zululand;
- The dual teaching act of The Gastric Jews – Profs Simmy Bank and Solly Marks. Hilarious;
- When I was in Driekoppen, Prof Saunders asked me to play squash with
Prof (later Sir) Roy Calne, the renowned transplant doc from England:
“Might be a good idea if you don’t win, Doctor Hassall.” (Remember how we
med students often referred to as ‘Dr’, facetiously, of course). I don’t
remember the result, but do remember Prof Calne as a lovely, gracious man.
And Prof Saunders as kind and patient with us;
- After some of us were beaten up by SA’s finest (the SAP) at one of the
demonstrations at the Anglican Church, Prof Saunders and Marius Barnard came
to GSH Casualty to see if we were OK;
- As houseman at PMH in District Six, I was called at ~4am to do a
forceps delivery; already out of my mind with exhaustion, I told the sister
to call the Registrar and hung up. Cannot believe I did that. Barry
Blumenthal was my registrar. At AM rounds, other than a couple expletives,
he didn’t seriously kick my ass, although I well deserved it.
A brief bio: After GSH housejobs, spent a year traveling in Europe / USA.
Trained in London in general peds, moved to Seattle Childrens / UW as a 3rd
year resident, worked in a small town in Washington State, got a green card.
Trained at UCLA in ped gastroenterology / endoscopy. Moved to Vancouver
BC, was there 26yrs, UBC Prof of Pediatric GI, my daughters all born in
Vancouver. Daughters went off to college / grad school in Canada / US. I
moved to San Francisco, worked a while, retired 6yrs ago. Loved my time in
medicine, but since quitting, haven’t missed it.
Now: reading a lot, studying a bit of art history, learning, hiking and
biking a lot, traveling a lot, cooking, enjoying life in California at age
70, ever-grateful for good health, beloved family and friends.
Couple pictures attached (see in Our Photographs section).
Warmest to all,
Eric
San Francisco, CA
Susan Comay:
Firstly thanks so much to you Trevor for initiating this. Every day there has been a little gift of a story or 2 in my inbox and it's been delightful, enlightening and inspiring to read of everyone's lives since 1973.
As for me…I left SA in 1975 with husband Maurice and a baby and trekked around Europe in a VW kombi for a while before heading to Vancouver which has been home for us since. Our second son was born in Vancouver and the third in Dar es Salaam. Africa called then and still does and as soon as we got Canadian citizenship we headed off to Tanzania to work there for 2 years in the early 80s. More recently did some medical volunteering in Ghana. We revisited Tanzania and Uganda last year.
I retired a few years ago from GP practice at a clinic with a women's and adolescent healthcare focus but we also cared for refugees, the homeless, unemployed, uninsured etc. Also headed the first medical sexual assault response service here with lots of outreach, forensic and court work. I loved the work but don’t miss it at all being too busy with 7 grandchildren (2 locally, 5 in Toronto), travelling tons, spending time at our island holiday house, reading, volunteering, cycling, running and now attempting some writing. I visit Cape Town annually and just got back from there with a week’s stopover for some cycling in Southern Spain. No complaints really.
If anyone visits this part of the world please be in touch. It would be great to have a visit and catch up in person. Those were 6 intense years of our lives that we shared.
Take care all of you
Warmly
Sue
Ian McCallum:
Well done on this initiative Trevor. I have been both delighted and impressed to read the mini-biographies of those who have so far, responded. It’s amazing how many of our year, are now successfully seeded in different parts of the world.
This morning I brought out the 1973 class photo to remind me of what some of you looked like … or should I say to remind myself of what I used to look like. When my grandchildren (ages:16,14,13, 12, 4, 2) point to my wrinkles, I tell them they are annular rings … evidence of 70+ journeys around the sun. They all live in Cape Town.
I continue to work from my home (Marina Da Gama - Muizenberg) as a private psychiatrist and analytical therapist with a large focus on the latter. It is incredibly rewarding work. My consulting room looks on to a low-branching tree and immediately behind it, a body of water, an island nature reserve, and beyond that, the quiet, solid presence of the Peninsula Mountains. This is the view that greets my patients during consultations. It does not surprise me when I am told that the view itself is therapeutic.
I try to work mornings only these days, combining this with writing and a fair amount of travelling as a guide/facilitator into the wild regions of southern, central, and east Africa. I am particularly interested in ecology and evolutionary biology and not least, the healing significance of wilderness on the human psyche.
I still enjoy a weekly game of squash (serve and volley stuff) as well as regular kayaking on the Marina.
All good wishes
Ian
Selig Leyser:
Hi Trevor and Classmates
I'm currently hiking in Portugal, which if that's your thing check out Rota Vicentina (trail starts a couple hours south of Lisbon and goes all the way to Sagres). Latter not only a well known beer but also Prince Henry the Navigator hung out here, but I digress!!
I currently live in Seattle, in the US, married to the same Maureen since 1973. Have two kids, both in Chicago although my daughter and family are moving to Seattle end of April, which is great.
I've been retired from Pathology (who would have thought) since 2006. As Sammy Sosa a baseball icon said, "baseball has been velly velly good to me". Since retiring I have been traveling, hiking, sailing and in last 3 years being a grandparent to 3 adorable little ones (totally unbiased). I started writing software in 1989, first a Pathology database but since then for birds, flowers and bridge.
I visited SA for the first time in over 30 years in 2006, taking some US, NZ & French friends in landrovers through SA, Botswana and Namibia, ending up in CT, where we stayed for 5 months, and had a great time.
I taught the medical students and the residents despite being unable to get licensed. (If anyone is in admin and interested, that's a whole saga). Maureen volunteered as an Occupational Therapist.
Since 2006 we've been returning for 2-3 months to enjoy CT in our winter.
At the 40th reunion, through Mike Madden, I met Claire, his wife who at the time was the head of the Poison Center at Red X (since, retired). They needed and I provided the software and database for the Poison Center and still support it now working with Cindy Steven, Claire's replacement. It's been a very enjoyable couple of years working with four delightful people.
I unknowing stayed at Guy Parr's Airbnb in Kalk Bay a couple of years ago, only seeing the last name of Louise after booking. We had drinks together and caught up.
I see Saville Furman when I visit, and Louise Irving (Berkowicz) who also lives in Seattle.
I bumped Ian McCullum at a hiking talk at the Vineyard Hotel this year. He hasn't changed a bit.
I saw John Conklin replied. I still have a balsa wood light he made 40 years ago. (Always admired his carpentry skills).
So that's my story.
I have been very fortunate and feel very grateful.
All the best to you all, hope our paths cross in the future.
Warm regards
Sel
John Odell on The Augusta Masters Golf Tournament:
Playing Golf at Augusta
This weekend is the Masters, the highland of the golfing calendar held at Augusta in Georgia,
I, having played this week at Cavendish in Buxton, Derbyshire, on a course also designed by James McKenzie, and marketed as the course that inspired Augusta, felt inspired to share with you my experiences playing Augusta.
But first, who was Alister McKenzie, the famous golf architect? He was a physician who served with the British in the Boer war and also in the First World War. He stated he was inspired by the Boers to create false fronts and deceptive holes by these clever Boers. Today, with the use of GPS and range finders these deceptive visual changes are not as challenging as when he designed his courses. After the First World War he gave up medicine and devoted his time to designing golf courses, designing famous golf courses, such as Royal Melbourne in Australia, Cypress Point, Augusta, three of the top ten rated courses in the World.
There are about 40 courses in mid England designed by McKenzie and I have played about eight of them, but none are as inspiring as Augusta, his last course he designed for Bobby Jones on a piece of land, previously used as a nursery. Alister McKenzie, died penniless begging to be paid his due, three months before he was able to see the the first Masters tournament played in 1933.
It is very difficult to play golf at Augusta and just as difficult to see the tournament live. You have to be accompanied by a member, or be a very good golfer and be invited. I was one of those who was able to play with a member. How did it happen? In about 1998 I was asked to see a patient, Flo Davis, 91 years of age with severe aortic stenosis. Her husband had started Winn Dixie, a grocery chain in the South-Eastern US. Her husband was very generous man and impressed by the Mayo Clinic, sufficient that he decided to do everything to attract the Mayo to Florida. He owned large tracts of land in Jacksonville and donated the land on which the Mayo Clinic in Florida is now based. He was very generous and donated to many charitable institutions in the Jacksonville area.
Flo, the widow, did very well after her operation of aortic valve replacement and lived for about thirteen years thereafter to about 104 years. In a generous gesture, perhaps pressurized by my PA, a golf fanatic, who had played in US open qualifiers and had played with Palmer, offered me a trip to Augusta. I did not refuse.
We flew in a corporate jet from Jacksonville to Augusta in May, about a month after the Masters and just before the course closed for the season. We needed to wait outside the entrance for the members other guests to leave before we could enter and drive down Magnolia lane - the member is only allowed one set of guests at a time.
The guest was a delight man, a previous CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, who collected golf clubs: not those you hold in your hands, but those you belong to - he was in addition a member of Cypress Point, the Royal and Ancient in St Andrews and a few others. He was with George Bush senior in the White House the day the German wall fell on the 9th November 1989. He recalls that he and Bush, who refused to be smug and arrogant under the circumstances, watched history unfold by watching CNN, rather than being briefed by a Security Advisor.
We were settled in the Butler cabin, where the green jackets are bestowed on the champions. My room was a few yards from where the ceremony took place. We played golf that afternoon. I had a good caddy, who told me everything slopes towards the 12th green. He was excellent. When I thought the ball would slope one way he would often direct me the other way. He was always right. I shot an 88, an impressive score for me, but solely due to my caddy’s expertise. The most difficult holes were 10 and 11. What makes Augusta difficult is the fast and difficult greens. There is virtually no rough and if you get into trouble you can usually recover.
That evening after drinks we had dinner in the clubhouse after a tour of the clubhouse. It was unpretentious and simple. The wine was excellent and after an excellent evening we settled in for the night.
Breakfast was at the clubhouse. No menu was offered instead we were simply asked what we would like. I am sure if I had asked for steak and eggs, I would have been served what I had asked for. On the fairways the mowers were travelling up and down in unison in the early morning mist. We could have been in paradise. We played the par 3-course and and another round on the true course. Although we knew the course better our score was no better - I think we had too many glasses of wine the night before.
Today when the Masters play, I am very cognizant of the geography and the challenges each player faces. I feel very honoured to have played such a beautiful course .
Addendum added by THK:
Gary Player won the Masters in 1974
Photo below is of Augusta
Thanks for including me in the email.
I have spent the last half and hour thinking of my happy time at UCT with the class of 73 . Very nostalgic. A very sad thing is that almost half the class has left RSA.
After my one year compulsory service in the army I was called up a year later to go to Angola.
I was determined NOT to put on that uniform again. I was also not going to spend 2 years in jail - so emigration was my only option.
The saddest day of my life was leaving the beloved RSA.
When I went to the website I noted no mention of Simon Groenewalt. When last I heard he was is Australia.
Is he still there?
Thanks,
Jeff
Jeffrey Wollach (addendum):
Thanks for contacting me. After an illuminating year in the South African Army, I spent six months in the UK and than wound up as a rural G.P in Saskatchewan. After 3 very cold winters I went to Halifax in Nova Scotia to do a residency in anesthesia. After a fellowship in cardio vascular anesthesia I was appointed as a staff anesthesiologist in Victoria British Columbia. (The city is on Vancouver Island halfway between Vancouver and Seattle). I have been here for 36 happy years as a cardio vascular anesthesiologist. I am now working half time and perhaps at the end of the year I may call it quits.
Victoria is the retirement capital of Canada and has a very temperate climate. One of the best places in the world to sail a small boat.
Still married to wife number one and three children have given us 4 grand children. I was back to the class reunion and it was great to see everyone.
If anyone passes though this area, please contact me.
Best wishes,
Jeff
John Sanders:
Continuing this ever lengthening email. I have been a general Paediatrician in provincial New Zealand (New Plymouth) for many years now after years in the UK and Zimbabwe. Certainly not a bad place to see out one's career. Have met up with colleagues for a number of years at the annual UCT Paediatric refresher course held at the lovely Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, though have never made it to a class reunion! Anyone travelling to these parts please look me up. Personal email is [email protected] the one on the list is my one at work.
Best wishes to all
John
Peter Patton:
Great idea to get this going
I live in Sydney and am still working
General Practice and IV Sedation
I have a wife who is an Academic at Sydney School of Nursing
I play golf regularly although not very well now
We have a holiday property at Hyams Beach, well worth visiting as it is said to have the whitest sands in the world !
There are about 10 of our class in Sydney or nearby
Regards
Peter
Lance Michell:
I’m still at GSH in Cape Town!
After doing anaesthesia I moved to Critical Care and retired in 2013 after being head of Surgical ICU at GSH for nearly 30 years. I still do occasional calls for the ICU at GSH and the UCT Private Academic Hospital.
Love it and can’t give it up.
Best wishes to you all
Lance
John Cowlin:
It is wonderful to hear what the class of 73 has been up to.I will try and add to the narrative. I see quite a lot of Pat Coghlan when he and Jackie visit Cape Town. Malcolm Cunard and his wife usually come out from the UK in January and we attend the GP refreshers course together. This year we heard two great lectures by Saville Furman and David Cameron on cyberchondria and euthenasia respectively. Robert Kaplan mentions the Department of History at Stellenbosch. I graduated there with a MA in history last year and am considering a PhD. Robert, I enjoyed your paper on the Barnard era. For the rest I still make furniture occasionally, but spend more time doing metal work, including a working model steam loco. Margie and have two children , both in Cape Town and 5 grandchildren. Good for us, but one wonders about the future with politicians like Malema and others promoting racism with impunity. In the meantime we live in Noordhoek which is peaceful, beautiful and near our children and grandchildren.What else can you hope for ??
Warm regards to you all.
John
[email protected]
Mike Madden:
Work is fun. Narrowing down private practice from colorectal surgery to proctology has made life easier. Helping at Groote Schuur and Somerset reminds me that some people can't even afford the taxi fare to the hospital, the right website usually answers the registrar’s question and experience helps to avoid mistakes. Donald Trump and Brexit help to put our load shedding and corrupt politicians in perspective.
Warm regards
Mike
Alec Goldin:
Jennifer and I have just returned from 2 weeks vacation visiting Victoria Falls, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg. So pleased and happy to hear from you and to be part of all of this. The 40th reunion was brilliant and have such fond memories of that fabulous event.
Still practising and enjoying life as a family practitioner in North London. I work one day a week in my NHS practice but practice privately during the rest of the week. Jennifer (wife of 44 years) and I are blessed with 5 grandchildren and the family get together most Friday evenings. Still enjoy flying my model aeroplanes and am learning, with difficulty, new aerobatic techniques!!
The thought of retirement and the loss of my identity frightens me. I am hugely blessed to be living in a great city (despite Brexit) surrounded by my gorgeous family.
Warm wishes and fondest regards.
Alec
Maurice Slevin:
I am a medical oncologist, in London since 1978. I toyed with Australia but this place grew on me. I got a consultant medical oncologist post at Barts hospital in 1982. I ran a solid tumour oncology ward and also had an academic post doing clinical research and had a clinical pharmacology research laboratory.
I was on the National Health Service for 30 years, also doing some private practice. In 2005 I set up a private cancer clinic called the London Oncology Clinic in Harley Street with three other colleagues and since 2008 have been there full-time. Nowadays work 4 days a week and take off Fridays when I spend some time visiting art galleries. Nowhere near thinking about retirement yet as I still enjoy what I do hugely.
I have two marriages, two divorces and three children under my belt!
I live in Notting Hill in London and take advantage of the proximity to Europe, especially Italy.
I used to go to Cape Town often when my parents were alive but now go much less often, mostly for family events.
Warmly
Maurice
Alan Atherstone:
I am still working full time as a general surgeon at Rockhampton Hospital, Queensland. I was head of Surgery at Frere Hospital, East London until the Eastern Cape Government crumbled. I moved to Australia in 2009.
I have 4 children and 7 grandkids divided between Brisbane and Cape Town. We recently returned from a holiday in South Island NZ and heading to South Africa in a few weeks time for 6 weeks.
We had lunch with Jacques Olivier (Radiologist on the Gold Coast) on Sunday. I am retiring in 5 months time. Plan then is a Lap around Australia in our caravan for a year.
Great to hear all your news.
Alan
Graeme Goldin:
Hey guys. Great to hear that most of us are still working, in good health and sound mind. No mention of enlarged prostates, altered bowel habits or arthritis.
Too balance the ledger I’ve got sciatica bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome arthritis tennis elbow rotator cuff tears and I can’t remember the names of my 4 children unless they’ve got there name badges on. Yet I’ve never felt better. I run an hour a day climb mountains hike and canoe. I stopped cycling after got run over by a truck.
I live in Sydney and am happily married with 4 kids and a granddaughter in Byron Bay.
Still working 4 days a week as a radiologist. 50 partners. Mix of hospital and private both city and rural. 3 months leave a year for adventure travel.
Remember fondly my time at UCT. Most rewarding time in medicine was my stint at Charles Johnson hospital in Zulu land.
All the best
Graeme
Jeff Barron:
Hi guys
Lovely to hear the stories, which brings your face back.
Janet & I live in north London, close to shops & public transport links. We have children & grandchildren in Perth, Brighton & close by. We entertain the 4 local grandchildren on 2 afternoons a week. Visit Perth annually.
I teach chemical pathology to medical students, medical English to refugee doctors, do locums. Recently started giving talks on ‘The diet wars, food as medicine’, because the medical students did not answer an essay well.
I practice Tai Chi daily, which was discovered through mindfulness, following a stroke while visiting friends in Vienna. Fortunately, we were directed to the stroke hospital, was thrombolysed within an hour with full recovery (UK is still an EU member).
We walk locally, recently in the Azores & next is the Vigos gorge, Greece.
I drink rooibos & coffee to keep the urine a light straw colour. Like eating interesting food.
Still remember Terry Blumenthal, who died in a MVA.
Jeff
Jacques Olivier:
Hi Trevor and everyone,
A clever initiative and fascinating to read the varied stories.
I struck it lucky, in early third year, we had two tutorials in Radiology by Dr Ernst Bass and Alan Goldin.
As we walked back to Med School, I said to our group that Radiology was definitely for me.
I wrote that week to Prof Engelbrecht at King Edward Hospital and he agreed to accept me, to join his department, 2 years after of qualifying.
I was the only medical student to ever contact him in his whole career. Times have changed and radiology has become extremely popular. We had over 80 applicants for 6 posts in our university department last year.
I qualified in radiology in Durban and had some wonderful years in private there.
Married with 3 kids we emigrated to Australia in 1987. Short stint in Tasmania then off to sunny Queensland where we settled comfortably on the Gold Coast. Six grandkids with one more on the way.
Life is busy, I work five 10 hour days a week . Still do call and its almost out of control. The department does an average of 80 CTs on a Saturday and similar number on a Sunday.
The consultants still have to check the registrars work so it can take up 10 hours a day of overtime to validate the studies.
Thoroughly enjoyed class reunion in 2013. I gave a talk on CT and was rather moved when Rob Dyer came up in break and said the following. '
"Jacques I remember the talk you gave at Edendale Hospital 40 years ago on CT. You have improved !!
I couldn't believe it. I was flattered.
We did our housemanship together at Edendale . I was sent by the physicians to spend a day at Wentworth Hospital, where they had just installed the worlds 16th EMI scanner .
I then gave a lecture on CT scanning to the department. The original CT scanners took 3 and a half minutes for one slice. Whole scan was 10 slices and patients were booked every half hour.
Rob I was very moved by your recollection, thank you it made my day.
3D volume rendering creates beautiful imagery in radiology and my job in Radiology has been a pleasure .
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's journeys; fascinating and entertaining.
I am motivated to be in Cape Town for the 50th.
Rob see you there mate!
Best wishes to all
Jacques
Eric Hassall:
A warm hello to all, thanks so much to Trevor for initiating this, and to Bolo for including me:
As I read through the list of names, I have several thoughts and feelings.
While I wish I’d got to know many of you outside my own circle a little better, I have warm feelings about our shared time in med school; camaraderie along with competition and the never-absent anxiety of the need to perform.
The warm feeling is in contrast to what I felt about events at UCT over the
last few years – the trashing of history in the halls of residence; the censorship of art on the campus; fire-bombing of the VC’s office; the craven, empty responses of UCT admin to extremists; the general feeling of dissolution, etc. The devaluing of the name ‘UCT’. I say this as a steadfastly politically liberal person.
But ag NO, NEE man, sê julle, geen politiks nie! Asseblief! OK, sure, on to other topics, then.
Among so many memories from those days, I’ll recount just a few:
- First-year. Sit-in over the Archie Mafeje issue. Us inside the Admin
Bldg, ringed by BOSS agents and hostile Maties;
- Attacked by police dogs on Jammie stairs;
- Failing anatomy until the final exam. Loving physiology and path and
clinical medicine;
- Along with hundreds of other NUSAS members, bidding farewell at
airport to Prof Raymond Hoffenberg, exiled;
- Sharing a flat in Forest Hills with Steven Perl and us walking to GSH
to go watch the second heart transplant on a Saturday afternoon;
- Our house watched, phones tapped; Steve Biko visited, asked to borrow
Steven Perl’s notes;
- Camping in the Cedarberg; frolicking on Sandy Bay; climbing the
mountain;
- Earthquake: I was in the UCT library. Back at Driekoppen, Bolo
standing outside, almost kaalgat;
- A distinguished visiting Brit prof giving us a lecture about the
subtleties, the detective work of Forensic Medicine. We go to Woodstock
morgue - first I see an entire family all deeply jaundiced, killed by
Amanita poisoning. Then a guy on a slab with an axe still in his head – not
a lot of sophisticated forensics required to determine the cause of death
there!
- Path autopsy rounds: in that small lecture theater, Prof Uys slices
open the abdomen of the unfortunate deceased, and even though I am in the
back row, the putrid pungency from that abdomen wafts up, and I gag, am
forced to leave, pronto! Cruel to have autopsy rounds right afterbreakfast! Esp since ondansetron not yet invented.
- Anthony Barker’s mission hospital in Zululand;
- The dual teaching act of The Gastric Jews – Profs Simmy Bank and Solly Marks. Hilarious;
- When I was in Driekoppen, Prof Saunders asked me to play squash with
Prof (later Sir) Roy Calne, the renowned transplant doc from England:
“Might be a good idea if you don’t win, Doctor Hassall.” (Remember how we
med students often referred to as ‘Dr’, facetiously, of course). I don’t
remember the result, but do remember Prof Calne as a lovely, gracious man.
And Prof Saunders as kind and patient with us;
- After some of us were beaten up by SA’s finest (the SAP) at one of the
demonstrations at the Anglican Church, Prof Saunders and Marius Barnard came
to GSH Casualty to see if we were OK;
- As houseman at PMH in District Six, I was called at ~4am to do a
forceps delivery; already out of my mind with exhaustion, I told the sister
to call the Registrar and hung up. Cannot believe I did that. Barry
Blumenthal was my registrar. At AM rounds, other than a couple expletives,
he didn’t seriously kick my ass, although I well deserved it.
A brief bio: After GSH housejobs, spent a year traveling in Europe / USA.
Trained in London in general peds, moved to Seattle Childrens / UW as a 3rd
year resident, worked in a small town in Washington State, got a green card.
Trained at UCLA in ped gastroenterology / endoscopy. Moved to Vancouver
BC, was there 26yrs, UBC Prof of Pediatric GI, my daughters all born in
Vancouver. Daughters went off to college / grad school in Canada / US. I
moved to San Francisco, worked a while, retired 6yrs ago. Loved my time in
medicine, but since quitting, haven’t missed it.
Now: reading a lot, studying a bit of art history, learning, hiking and
biking a lot, traveling a lot, cooking, enjoying life in California at age
70, ever-grateful for good health, beloved family and friends.
Couple pictures attached (see in Our Photographs section).
Warmest to all,
Eric
San Francisco, CA
Susan Comay:
Firstly thanks so much to you Trevor for initiating this. Every day there has been a little gift of a story or 2 in my inbox and it's been delightful, enlightening and inspiring to read of everyone's lives since 1973.
As for me…I left SA in 1975 with husband Maurice and a baby and trekked around Europe in a VW kombi for a while before heading to Vancouver which has been home for us since. Our second son was born in Vancouver and the third in Dar es Salaam. Africa called then and still does and as soon as we got Canadian citizenship we headed off to Tanzania to work there for 2 years in the early 80s. More recently did some medical volunteering in Ghana. We revisited Tanzania and Uganda last year.
I retired a few years ago from GP practice at a clinic with a women's and adolescent healthcare focus but we also cared for refugees, the homeless, unemployed, uninsured etc. Also headed the first medical sexual assault response service here with lots of outreach, forensic and court work. I loved the work but don’t miss it at all being too busy with 7 grandchildren (2 locally, 5 in Toronto), travelling tons, spending time at our island holiday house, reading, volunteering, cycling, running and now attempting some writing. I visit Cape Town annually and just got back from there with a week’s stopover for some cycling in Southern Spain. No complaints really.
If anyone visits this part of the world please be in touch. It would be great to have a visit and catch up in person. Those were 6 intense years of our lives that we shared.
Take care all of you
Warmly
Sue
Ian McCallum:
Well done on this initiative Trevor. I have been both delighted and impressed to read the mini-biographies of those who have so far, responded. It’s amazing how many of our year, are now successfully seeded in different parts of the world.
This morning I brought out the 1973 class photo to remind me of what some of you looked like … or should I say to remind myself of what I used to look like. When my grandchildren (ages:16,14,13, 12, 4, 2) point to my wrinkles, I tell them they are annular rings … evidence of 70+ journeys around the sun. They all live in Cape Town.
I continue to work from my home (Marina Da Gama - Muizenberg) as a private psychiatrist and analytical therapist with a large focus on the latter. It is incredibly rewarding work. My consulting room looks on to a low-branching tree and immediately behind it, a body of water, an island nature reserve, and beyond that, the quiet, solid presence of the Peninsula Mountains. This is the view that greets my patients during consultations. It does not surprise me when I am told that the view itself is therapeutic.
I try to work mornings only these days, combining this with writing and a fair amount of travelling as a guide/facilitator into the wild regions of southern, central, and east Africa. I am particularly interested in ecology and evolutionary biology and not least, the healing significance of wilderness on the human psyche.
I still enjoy a weekly game of squash (serve and volley stuff) as well as regular kayaking on the Marina.
All good wishes
Ian
Selig Leyser:
Hi Trevor and Classmates
I'm currently hiking in Portugal, which if that's your thing check out Rota Vicentina (trail starts a couple hours south of Lisbon and goes all the way to Sagres). Latter not only a well known beer but also Prince Henry the Navigator hung out here, but I digress!!
I currently live in Seattle, in the US, married to the same Maureen since 1973. Have two kids, both in Chicago although my daughter and family are moving to Seattle end of April, which is great.
I've been retired from Pathology (who would have thought) since 2006. As Sammy Sosa a baseball icon said, "baseball has been velly velly good to me". Since retiring I have been traveling, hiking, sailing and in last 3 years being a grandparent to 3 adorable little ones (totally unbiased). I started writing software in 1989, first a Pathology database but since then for birds, flowers and bridge.
I visited SA for the first time in over 30 years in 2006, taking some US, NZ & French friends in landrovers through SA, Botswana and Namibia, ending up in CT, where we stayed for 5 months, and had a great time.
I taught the medical students and the residents despite being unable to get licensed. (If anyone is in admin and interested, that's a whole saga). Maureen volunteered as an Occupational Therapist.
Since 2006 we've been returning for 2-3 months to enjoy CT in our winter.
At the 40th reunion, through Mike Madden, I met Claire, his wife who at the time was the head of the Poison Center at Red X (since, retired). They needed and I provided the software and database for the Poison Center and still support it now working with Cindy Steven, Claire's replacement. It's been a very enjoyable couple of years working with four delightful people.
I unknowing stayed at Guy Parr's Airbnb in Kalk Bay a couple of years ago, only seeing the last name of Louise after booking. We had drinks together and caught up.
I see Saville Furman when I visit, and Louise Irving (Berkowicz) who also lives in Seattle.
I bumped Ian McCullum at a hiking talk at the Vineyard Hotel this year. He hasn't changed a bit.
I saw John Conklin replied. I still have a balsa wood light he made 40 years ago. (Always admired his carpentry skills).
So that's my story.
I have been very fortunate and feel very grateful.
All the best to you all, hope our paths cross in the future.
Warm regards
Sel
John Odell on The Augusta Masters Golf Tournament:
Playing Golf at Augusta
This weekend is the Masters, the highland of the golfing calendar held at Augusta in Georgia,
I, having played this week at Cavendish in Buxton, Derbyshire, on a course also designed by James McKenzie, and marketed as the course that inspired Augusta, felt inspired to share with you my experiences playing Augusta.
But first, who was Alister McKenzie, the famous golf architect? He was a physician who served with the British in the Boer war and also in the First World War. He stated he was inspired by the Boers to create false fronts and deceptive holes by these clever Boers. Today, with the use of GPS and range finders these deceptive visual changes are not as challenging as when he designed his courses. After the First World War he gave up medicine and devoted his time to designing golf courses, designing famous golf courses, such as Royal Melbourne in Australia, Cypress Point, Augusta, three of the top ten rated courses in the World.
There are about 40 courses in mid England designed by McKenzie and I have played about eight of them, but none are as inspiring as Augusta, his last course he designed for Bobby Jones on a piece of land, previously used as a nursery. Alister McKenzie, died penniless begging to be paid his due, three months before he was able to see the the first Masters tournament played in 1933.
It is very difficult to play golf at Augusta and just as difficult to see the tournament live. You have to be accompanied by a member, or be a very good golfer and be invited. I was one of those who was able to play with a member. How did it happen? In about 1998 I was asked to see a patient, Flo Davis, 91 years of age with severe aortic stenosis. Her husband had started Winn Dixie, a grocery chain in the South-Eastern US. Her husband was very generous man and impressed by the Mayo Clinic, sufficient that he decided to do everything to attract the Mayo to Florida. He owned large tracts of land in Jacksonville and donated the land on which the Mayo Clinic in Florida is now based. He was very generous and donated to many charitable institutions in the Jacksonville area.
Flo, the widow, did very well after her operation of aortic valve replacement and lived for about thirteen years thereafter to about 104 years. In a generous gesture, perhaps pressurized by my PA, a golf fanatic, who had played in US open qualifiers and had played with Palmer, offered me a trip to Augusta. I did not refuse.
We flew in a corporate jet from Jacksonville to Augusta in May, about a month after the Masters and just before the course closed for the season. We needed to wait outside the entrance for the members other guests to leave before we could enter and drive down Magnolia lane - the member is only allowed one set of guests at a time.
The guest was a delight man, a previous CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, who collected golf clubs: not those you hold in your hands, but those you belong to - he was in addition a member of Cypress Point, the Royal and Ancient in St Andrews and a few others. He was with George Bush senior in the White House the day the German wall fell on the 9th November 1989. He recalls that he and Bush, who refused to be smug and arrogant under the circumstances, watched history unfold by watching CNN, rather than being briefed by a Security Advisor.
We were settled in the Butler cabin, where the green jackets are bestowed on the champions. My room was a few yards from where the ceremony took place. We played golf that afternoon. I had a good caddy, who told me everything slopes towards the 12th green. He was excellent. When I thought the ball would slope one way he would often direct me the other way. He was always right. I shot an 88, an impressive score for me, but solely due to my caddy’s expertise. The most difficult holes were 10 and 11. What makes Augusta difficult is the fast and difficult greens. There is virtually no rough and if you get into trouble you can usually recover.
That evening after drinks we had dinner in the clubhouse after a tour of the clubhouse. It was unpretentious and simple. The wine was excellent and after an excellent evening we settled in for the night.
Breakfast was at the clubhouse. No menu was offered instead we were simply asked what we would like. I am sure if I had asked for steak and eggs, I would have been served what I had asked for. On the fairways the mowers were travelling up and down in unison in the early morning mist. We could have been in paradise. We played the par 3-course and and another round on the true course. Although we knew the course better our score was no better - I think we had too many glasses of wine the night before.
Today when the Masters play, I am very cognizant of the geography and the challenges each player faces. I feel very honoured to have played such a beautiful course .
Addendum added by THK:
Gary Player won the Masters in 1974
Photo below is of Augusta
Alan Sive:
Good to hear from you and am pleased Tony gave you my contact details. Will check the website.
I am well, active and fully retired and since 2015 Penny and I have been living in the Dordogne in rural France.
I hope to visit SF again in March/April next year and will catch-up with Tony and Wilma but am not sure when we will visit the East Coast or Boston. However, if we do, will let you know and hope we can meet up.
Kind regards and best wishes
Alan
Leonie Gordon and Walter Leventhal:
We were enthralled to read the stories about our class mates.I will be as brief as possible.We left SA in Jan 1977 to the USA where I had to repeat a residency in Family Medicine because my time at GSH was all “tertiary” I was able to breeze through this because residency here compared to SA was like kindergarten.Leonie had to work for us to make ends meet so she initially taught diagnosis to Physician Assistants. You may remember Julius Sagel, who was a consultant endocrinologist at the local VA hospital. He secured a position for Leonie in their department and thence did Nuclear Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina for 2 years. Having then joined the faculty she has become a leader nationally in the field. She is a full Professor in the dept. of Radiology and a dean in the school itself. She is very active in her nuclear medicine specialty, the associate executive director of the American Board of Nuclear Medicine and is very active in the national medical school accreditation group. I taught at our FP residency for a couple of years, but wanted more patient contact and so have been in private practice since 1982. Having become US citizens in 1984, I felt a sense of gratitude to the country and joined the US Navy Reserves and was the medical officer on a destroyer based out of Charleston for 5 years. I still have life long ship mate friendships. I teach medical students in my office regularly and have edited a chapter on Infectious diseases in the Textbook of Family Medicine. I also contribute regularly to our newspaper on current affairs and may try my hand at a collection of short stories based on my experiences in the office and at sea. Charleston is a lovely historic southern city and we regard ourselves as fortunate to have landed and stayed here for the past 42 years. We have met Tim Farquharson in NZ ,a group of our classmates in Sidney, John Odell in Jacksonville, Florida, Trevor Kaye. Louise Berks , Lorraine Fig and Tony Bass. Peter Patton and I have met up several times too and organized a mini reunion with class mates in Sydney. We have not been back to SA for 23 years, but are visiting the Cape next March. We are planning to get together with Lance Mitchell and maybe Charlie Swanepoel. We would love to see as many of our classmates as possible then, so please let us know if y’all can make it happen. We are planning to return for the 50th reunion health permitting. Our best and fond wishes to the wonderful colleagues of the UCT Med School Class of 1973.
PS My partner is Henk Burger from Tukkies en nou is my Afrikaans heelwat beter as tevore. Tot siens julle!
Walter and Leonie
Peter Berning:
Hi Trevor..and the rest of the class.
Thank you for forwarding this Trev, but my first attempt a few months ago did not go through from my Samsung! And thank YOU as well for making the group happen.
I am in awe of what our class has achieved so was a bit hesitant to write and bore you all with my relatively mundane story! But I suppose (and believe) that we 'GP's' : Saville, Jenny, Greg et al have had an important role to play as well. Speaking of roles, I will certainly keep a lookout for Hannah, Brent, as my son, Clyde, is an actor too. He was born in Wales in 1980, like his sister was in 1977, while I was doing locums in Brecon - 3 years apart! Same hospital, same GP Obstetrician, same midwife, same bed!! Angus McClennan and I left the UK in September '77 to meet up with Errol Simpson in Sydney and do "Radio doctor locum" work all over Sydney. Angus and Errol stayed on of course and I came back, and did 2 years in the Anaesthetic Dept; wrote the DA (and passed believe it or not) and came to Plett (Plettenberg Bay) where I have been ever since - 38 years!
As I write this and look out to Formosa peak and the Tsitsikama range, I can see Keurboomstrand (where Bruce Cloete had a beach house that Mark Schreiber and I visited in 1978) and I feel that the privilege we enjoyed, that Brent correctly writes of, has been extended for me!! My daughter and her 2 children live here (with their Dad) on our 21 hectare farm and I am still working at my surgery in town 8 k's away. I've stopped night and weekend work, but will probably go on consulting and doing procedures until I'm 75 or more! I have just completed a course in Translational Nutrigenomics and am excited about getting into 'personalized medicine' working with a Cape Town based company, 3x4 Genetics.
I have done another 2 expeditions since we met in 2013. One to Mt Vinson back in Antarctica, which was successful, and one to a mountain volcano, Ojos del Salado in Chile which was not! In that we did not summit, but it was great and my son age 37 climbed too...higher than us all!
Enough! But if any of you are here in Plett for whatever reason PLEASE come and see me at surgery or home.
Looking forward to 2023.
Best to all
Peter
PS: I have another 3 grandchildren in Cape Town. The eldest boy is in grade 2 at SACS
(for all you SACS boys in the class of'73).
Brent van der Westhuysen:
Firstly Trevor, apologies for tardiness in getting back to you and on this fabulous site that you have created~WELL DONE! ~but life always seems too socially active ~ how we ever managed to work and party I have no idea!
A quick synopsis for those who I’ve not been in touch with over the last 40 years or whatever it is~
* I left RSA in 1975 after completing my house Job and one year registrar at Addington Hospital in Durban, Natal.
* I was offered a job with P&O cruises on a passenger liner and somehow managed to remain there for 19 years on and off! The truth is I had to escape the evils of apartheid and having to join the army!
It was a lot of fun I but also sometimes very stressful because in the middle of the ocean as a medic you are basically “it” for whatever emergency evolved!
* In between, I emigrated to Australia having fallen in love the first time I entered Sydney harbour ~spent seven fantastic years there as a GP.
* When I left the scene I opened a rehabilitation sports clinic in St John’s Wood, London ~right opposite Lord’s cricket ground which was great fun for three years.
* Now I’m now very happily retired and basically spend nine months in Richmond, London and three months in Sydney, Australia to escape the winters!
* On the personal side I’ve only been married once and only have one gorgeous daughter who has just completed a degree drama school at London University and has already managed parts in three movies plus TV work as well! Her name is Hannah so look out for on the big silver screen!
When I look back, I realize how blessed we really were to have won the lottery of life to have been born privileged in such a wonderful country as South Africa. When first I left I thought we were the pariahs of the world but soon realized that we were always welcome medically because of the sound work ethos that was instilled in us and the fact that we were not trained to feel your hard work and long hours . However I still feel sad that not everybody in South Africa where is lucky as we were ....
I know are we are all proud to be UCT alumni and will always support them generously.
I look forward to keep in contact with everyone .
Brent .
Jenny Hurley Fraser:
Nice to be in contact with the class. Thanks to Trevor for organizing it.
Haven't climbed to such illustrious heights as many of you have. Still a GP in private practice and am running an Air BnB in Rondebosch. I keep in communications with Margie Stanford Anderson & see her when she comes out here, and I walk with Ann Moore on most Weds. Thanks to Ann, who shared her faith with me in 4th yr, I have been enabled to put up with widowhood, CA, the clubbing & torturing of my parents & stealing of my inheritance in Zim amongst many other things.
I still try to jump on the trampoline albeit geriatrically. I have 4 children, happily married and 12 wonderful grandchildren (at the latest offspring count).
Lovely to hear from all of you. Keep in touch.
Jenny
Peter Schutte:
Yours is an excellent idea. It is extraordinary that so many of us from UCT continue to work into our 70s. Most of my contemporaries here in the UK retired at 60 or 65 - and one or two at 55.
I was very sorry to hear about Colin Sparg - he was such a likeable man.
I moved to the UK in 1975, and after 10 years in anaesthesia and general practice, joined the full-time staff of the Medical Defence Union in London and entered the small speciality of legal medicine. It was hard work, and it involved long hours, but I loved it, and would not have wanted anything different. In later years (akin to promotion in the nursing profession) I was more into management and supervision than hands-on medicine & the law, but it’s all been unendingly interesting - not least because conflict brings out the best and the worst in people, and every case in legal medicine is very different.
I did a lot of lecturing and had to attend innumerable meetings and hearings, but I was able to do most of my day-to-day work by 'phone or on a computer, so I became a home worker and in 2003 moved to a small farm in the gentle county of Norfolk - commuting to London maybe once a fortnight. My office was a converted milk shed. It’s been a privilege serving the medical profession. Almost all the doctors who found themselves in big trouble and who were assisted either directly or indirectly by me, were worthy of more admiration than opprobrium. (Harold Shipman was one of the rare and notable exceptions). I retired from my day job last year aged 70, but turning from poacher to gamekeeper so to speak, I now do appraisals & consultancy work for NHS England and NHS Improvement.
None of my wonderful & amazing children is going into medicine, but two (so far) have became lawyers. When my 7th child finished school it brought to an end a run of 39 years for me, of having a child at school! The growing army of grandchildren is a delight.
My wife Nina is a local GP. We try to make time to cycle every day along the country lanes around our house. I still keep in touch with my former wife, Margie. She’s ordained in the Church of England & works as a prison chaplain.
I was last briefly in Cape Town in 2016 en route to a self-drive safari in Botswana. We met Mike & Kay du Toit, but due to a very tight schedule, sadly no-one else. The highlight of the safari was Deception Valley in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. My two youngest kids (both undergraduates at Oxford University - one reading economics and the other English) loved it so much that they are clamouring to go again in June 2020. As they keep reminding me, it’ll be more of an adventure than a holiday….
Best wishes to all
Peter
Adrian Bosenberg:
Below is an article written by Bosie a few years ago:
"It is oft said that Africa is in your bones, in your soul! My recent sojourn in Kigali, Rwanda confirmed
that. Kigali is a far cry from my days at UCT where some may argue I spent more time on the rugby
fields than studying for my medical degree. Since leaving medical school I have been on a rather
circuitous route to where I am today. After a brief period in New Zealand (to play more rugby!) I
completed my specialist training in Durban, followed by a fellowship in paediatric anaesthesia at the
University of Washington in Seattle. I then returned to Durban where I spent almost 20 years in
paediatric anaesthesia at the King Edward VIII hospital at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.
However, the draw of Cape Town was too great and I accepted an offer for the Second Chair of
Anaesthesia at UCT and subsequently continued my passion i.e. paediatric anaesthesia at the Red
Cross Children’s Hospital. An offer to return to Seattle in 2008 to take up a professorial position
as Director of Regional Anaesthesia at Seattle Children’s Hospital was an opportunity not to be
missed. But the draw of Africa never leaves you! Having previously spent time in Kinshasa, I was
a little tentative about Rwanda with its equally troubled history. Kinshasa had been a disturbing eye opener for someone who had hardly travelled in Africa thanks to the restrictions imposed on us growing up in apartheid South
Africa. I never felt comfortable in Kinshasa. The facilities, especially
health care, were unbelievably poor. The mission team had been greeted with no running water in the operating theatres, unreliable
electrical supplies, toilets that you preferred to stay out of no matter how desperate you might be and antiseptic soap that was
nowhere to be found. As a result of the almost complete breakdown of health services, it was not surprising that over 600 patients of
all ages were waiting to be assessed for surgery. On a positive note, despite the difficulties, over 200 congenital facial deformities
were corrected without complication. Rwanda on the other hand was a gem! Ravaged by the horrific
genocide of the recent past, it could not have been a greater surprise. The country was spotlessly clean and the people outgoing
and friendly. The country continues to rebuild and there was no overt hint of the genocide apart from the memorial sites that
served as a gruesome reminder of the fallibility of human nature.
The mission team was greeted by a similar number of patients waiting for much sought after surgery. However, I had an added
bonus in that my daughter, Melissa*, a fellow anaesthesiologist who trained at UCT, was on her first mission.
What were we doing in central Africa you might ask? Simple really! We had joined Operation Smile, a global non-profit
humanitarian medical service out of Norfolk, Virginia, that has been correcting cleft lip and palate and other facial deformities
in countries with limited medical resources around the world for almost 30 years. Operation Smile South Africa (OSSA), based
in Cape Town, was founded and registered as a section 21 company in March 2006. OSSA was established to serve Southern
and Central Africa including Madagascar. To date OSSA has sponsored missions to Madagascar, Swaziland, Rwanda, DRC,
Namibia, and also served parts of South Africa. OSSA is run by a dynamic group of young ladies who make our lives as medical
professionals as comfortable as possible in unfamiliar environments.
The contrasts of Africa are intriguing. Why is it that surgical and (forgive my bias!) more importantly, anaesthetic expertise to
perform safe surgery is lacking? Children and adults up to 70 years have uncorrected cleft lips and yet there is no shortage of
cell phones! In Kigali we even had a law student wait patiently in line with everyone else to have surgery. He was not going to
miss this opportunity. Thankfully he was able to write his law exam the following day, which we only realised when he politely
requested not to return for his follow-up appointment. Some of the stories behind the people who come for surgery
make you realise the impact that the missions have on their lives. There are many stories but perhaps the ones that have left the
biggest impression on me include the family who walked over 300km to have surgery because they couldn’t afford to pay for
transport; Simeon, the 21 year old, who had never seen a motor vehicle before he boarded the Peace Corps bus to travel to the
mission; and the initial terror and subsequent joy of 14 year old Vian, the Ugandan lad who, as a young boy, had escaped human
sacrifice (still a tribal custom in Uganda!), and travelled to Kigali with his uncle and guardian for surgery. At the end of each mission one realizes that we have a lot to be thankful for! I reflect on the mutual outpouring of goodwill from a team of volunteers from all walks of life, who give up much of their annual leave to change the lives of people they have never met and are never likely to see again. The beauty of Op Smile is in the people that volunteer. All work – and play – with a common purpose; lawyers serve as photographers, product managers as data capturers and of course surgeons, nurses and anaesthesiologists – all coordinated by a vibrant group of young ladies from Op Smile head office. Often referred to as the “Dream Team,” the South African team completed a record 252 surgeries in Kigali in just five operating days with incredible efficiency
without compromising safety. Each volunteer is affected by a mission in different ways. I left Kigali bursting with pride. Not
many fathers are blessed with the opportunity to share such an experience with his daughter* in the heart of Africa!"
*Tragically Bosie's twin son and daughter died in a motor vehicle accident while travelling together in South America.
Good to hear from you and am pleased Tony gave you my contact details. Will check the website.
I am well, active and fully retired and since 2015 Penny and I have been living in the Dordogne in rural France.
I hope to visit SF again in March/April next year and will catch-up with Tony and Wilma but am not sure when we will visit the East Coast or Boston. However, if we do, will let you know and hope we can meet up.
Kind regards and best wishes
Alan
Leonie Gordon and Walter Leventhal:
We were enthralled to read the stories about our class mates.I will be as brief as possible.We left SA in Jan 1977 to the USA where I had to repeat a residency in Family Medicine because my time at GSH was all “tertiary” I was able to breeze through this because residency here compared to SA was like kindergarten.Leonie had to work for us to make ends meet so she initially taught diagnosis to Physician Assistants. You may remember Julius Sagel, who was a consultant endocrinologist at the local VA hospital. He secured a position for Leonie in their department and thence did Nuclear Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina for 2 years. Having then joined the faculty she has become a leader nationally in the field. She is a full Professor in the dept. of Radiology and a dean in the school itself. She is very active in her nuclear medicine specialty, the associate executive director of the American Board of Nuclear Medicine and is very active in the national medical school accreditation group. I taught at our FP residency for a couple of years, but wanted more patient contact and so have been in private practice since 1982. Having become US citizens in 1984, I felt a sense of gratitude to the country and joined the US Navy Reserves and was the medical officer on a destroyer based out of Charleston for 5 years. I still have life long ship mate friendships. I teach medical students in my office regularly and have edited a chapter on Infectious diseases in the Textbook of Family Medicine. I also contribute regularly to our newspaper on current affairs and may try my hand at a collection of short stories based on my experiences in the office and at sea. Charleston is a lovely historic southern city and we regard ourselves as fortunate to have landed and stayed here for the past 42 years. We have met Tim Farquharson in NZ ,a group of our classmates in Sidney, John Odell in Jacksonville, Florida, Trevor Kaye. Louise Berks , Lorraine Fig and Tony Bass. Peter Patton and I have met up several times too and organized a mini reunion with class mates in Sydney. We have not been back to SA for 23 years, but are visiting the Cape next March. We are planning to get together with Lance Mitchell and maybe Charlie Swanepoel. We would love to see as many of our classmates as possible then, so please let us know if y’all can make it happen. We are planning to return for the 50th reunion health permitting. Our best and fond wishes to the wonderful colleagues of the UCT Med School Class of 1973.
PS My partner is Henk Burger from Tukkies en nou is my Afrikaans heelwat beter as tevore. Tot siens julle!
Walter and Leonie
Peter Berning:
Hi Trevor..and the rest of the class.
Thank you for forwarding this Trev, but my first attempt a few months ago did not go through from my Samsung! And thank YOU as well for making the group happen.
I am in awe of what our class has achieved so was a bit hesitant to write and bore you all with my relatively mundane story! But I suppose (and believe) that we 'GP's' : Saville, Jenny, Greg et al have had an important role to play as well. Speaking of roles, I will certainly keep a lookout for Hannah, Brent, as my son, Clyde, is an actor too. He was born in Wales in 1980, like his sister was in 1977, while I was doing locums in Brecon - 3 years apart! Same hospital, same GP Obstetrician, same midwife, same bed!! Angus McClennan and I left the UK in September '77 to meet up with Errol Simpson in Sydney and do "Radio doctor locum" work all over Sydney. Angus and Errol stayed on of course and I came back, and did 2 years in the Anaesthetic Dept; wrote the DA (and passed believe it or not) and came to Plett (Plettenberg Bay) where I have been ever since - 38 years!
As I write this and look out to Formosa peak and the Tsitsikama range, I can see Keurboomstrand (where Bruce Cloete had a beach house that Mark Schreiber and I visited in 1978) and I feel that the privilege we enjoyed, that Brent correctly writes of, has been extended for me!! My daughter and her 2 children live here (with their Dad) on our 21 hectare farm and I am still working at my surgery in town 8 k's away. I've stopped night and weekend work, but will probably go on consulting and doing procedures until I'm 75 or more! I have just completed a course in Translational Nutrigenomics and am excited about getting into 'personalized medicine' working with a Cape Town based company, 3x4 Genetics.
I have done another 2 expeditions since we met in 2013. One to Mt Vinson back in Antarctica, which was successful, and one to a mountain volcano, Ojos del Salado in Chile which was not! In that we did not summit, but it was great and my son age 37 climbed too...higher than us all!
Enough! But if any of you are here in Plett for whatever reason PLEASE come and see me at surgery or home.
Looking forward to 2023.
Best to all
Peter
PS: I have another 3 grandchildren in Cape Town. The eldest boy is in grade 2 at SACS
(for all you SACS boys in the class of'73).
Brent van der Westhuysen:
Firstly Trevor, apologies for tardiness in getting back to you and on this fabulous site that you have created~WELL DONE! ~but life always seems too socially active ~ how we ever managed to work and party I have no idea!
A quick synopsis for those who I’ve not been in touch with over the last 40 years or whatever it is~
* I left RSA in 1975 after completing my house Job and one year registrar at Addington Hospital in Durban, Natal.
* I was offered a job with P&O cruises on a passenger liner and somehow managed to remain there for 19 years on and off! The truth is I had to escape the evils of apartheid and having to join the army!
It was a lot of fun I but also sometimes very stressful because in the middle of the ocean as a medic you are basically “it” for whatever emergency evolved!
* In between, I emigrated to Australia having fallen in love the first time I entered Sydney harbour ~spent seven fantastic years there as a GP.
* When I left the scene I opened a rehabilitation sports clinic in St John’s Wood, London ~right opposite Lord’s cricket ground which was great fun for three years.
* Now I’m now very happily retired and basically spend nine months in Richmond, London and three months in Sydney, Australia to escape the winters!
* On the personal side I’ve only been married once and only have one gorgeous daughter who has just completed a degree drama school at London University and has already managed parts in three movies plus TV work as well! Her name is Hannah so look out for on the big silver screen!
When I look back, I realize how blessed we really were to have won the lottery of life to have been born privileged in such a wonderful country as South Africa. When first I left I thought we were the pariahs of the world but soon realized that we were always welcome medically because of the sound work ethos that was instilled in us and the fact that we were not trained to feel your hard work and long hours . However I still feel sad that not everybody in South Africa where is lucky as we were ....
I know are we are all proud to be UCT alumni and will always support them generously.
I look forward to keep in contact with everyone .
Brent .
Jenny Hurley Fraser:
Nice to be in contact with the class. Thanks to Trevor for organizing it.
Haven't climbed to such illustrious heights as many of you have. Still a GP in private practice and am running an Air BnB in Rondebosch. I keep in communications with Margie Stanford Anderson & see her when she comes out here, and I walk with Ann Moore on most Weds. Thanks to Ann, who shared her faith with me in 4th yr, I have been enabled to put up with widowhood, CA, the clubbing & torturing of my parents & stealing of my inheritance in Zim amongst many other things.
I still try to jump on the trampoline albeit geriatrically. I have 4 children, happily married and 12 wonderful grandchildren (at the latest offspring count).
Lovely to hear from all of you. Keep in touch.
Jenny
Peter Schutte:
Yours is an excellent idea. It is extraordinary that so many of us from UCT continue to work into our 70s. Most of my contemporaries here in the UK retired at 60 or 65 - and one or two at 55.
I was very sorry to hear about Colin Sparg - he was such a likeable man.
I moved to the UK in 1975, and after 10 years in anaesthesia and general practice, joined the full-time staff of the Medical Defence Union in London and entered the small speciality of legal medicine. It was hard work, and it involved long hours, but I loved it, and would not have wanted anything different. In later years (akin to promotion in the nursing profession) I was more into management and supervision than hands-on medicine & the law, but it’s all been unendingly interesting - not least because conflict brings out the best and the worst in people, and every case in legal medicine is very different.
I did a lot of lecturing and had to attend innumerable meetings and hearings, but I was able to do most of my day-to-day work by 'phone or on a computer, so I became a home worker and in 2003 moved to a small farm in the gentle county of Norfolk - commuting to London maybe once a fortnight. My office was a converted milk shed. It’s been a privilege serving the medical profession. Almost all the doctors who found themselves in big trouble and who were assisted either directly or indirectly by me, were worthy of more admiration than opprobrium. (Harold Shipman was one of the rare and notable exceptions). I retired from my day job last year aged 70, but turning from poacher to gamekeeper so to speak, I now do appraisals & consultancy work for NHS England and NHS Improvement.
None of my wonderful & amazing children is going into medicine, but two (so far) have became lawyers. When my 7th child finished school it brought to an end a run of 39 years for me, of having a child at school! The growing army of grandchildren is a delight.
My wife Nina is a local GP. We try to make time to cycle every day along the country lanes around our house. I still keep in touch with my former wife, Margie. She’s ordained in the Church of England & works as a prison chaplain.
I was last briefly in Cape Town in 2016 en route to a self-drive safari in Botswana. We met Mike & Kay du Toit, but due to a very tight schedule, sadly no-one else. The highlight of the safari was Deception Valley in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. My two youngest kids (both undergraduates at Oxford University - one reading economics and the other English) loved it so much that they are clamouring to go again in June 2020. As they keep reminding me, it’ll be more of an adventure than a holiday….
Best wishes to all
Peter
Adrian Bosenberg:
Below is an article written by Bosie a few years ago:
"It is oft said that Africa is in your bones, in your soul! My recent sojourn in Kigali, Rwanda confirmed
that. Kigali is a far cry from my days at UCT where some may argue I spent more time on the rugby
fields than studying for my medical degree. Since leaving medical school I have been on a rather
circuitous route to where I am today. After a brief period in New Zealand (to play more rugby!) I
completed my specialist training in Durban, followed by a fellowship in paediatric anaesthesia at the
University of Washington in Seattle. I then returned to Durban where I spent almost 20 years in
paediatric anaesthesia at the King Edward VIII hospital at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.
However, the draw of Cape Town was too great and I accepted an offer for the Second Chair of
Anaesthesia at UCT and subsequently continued my passion i.e. paediatric anaesthesia at the Red
Cross Children’s Hospital. An offer to return to Seattle in 2008 to take up a professorial position
as Director of Regional Anaesthesia at Seattle Children’s Hospital was an opportunity not to be
missed. But the draw of Africa never leaves you! Having previously spent time in Kinshasa, I was
a little tentative about Rwanda with its equally troubled history. Kinshasa had been a disturbing eye opener for someone who had hardly travelled in Africa thanks to the restrictions imposed on us growing up in apartheid South
Africa. I never felt comfortable in Kinshasa. The facilities, especially
health care, were unbelievably poor. The mission team had been greeted with no running water in the operating theatres, unreliable
electrical supplies, toilets that you preferred to stay out of no matter how desperate you might be and antiseptic soap that was
nowhere to be found. As a result of the almost complete breakdown of health services, it was not surprising that over 600 patients of
all ages were waiting to be assessed for surgery. On a positive note, despite the difficulties, over 200 congenital facial deformities
were corrected without complication. Rwanda on the other hand was a gem! Ravaged by the horrific
genocide of the recent past, it could not have been a greater surprise. The country was spotlessly clean and the people outgoing
and friendly. The country continues to rebuild and there was no overt hint of the genocide apart from the memorial sites that
served as a gruesome reminder of the fallibility of human nature.
The mission team was greeted by a similar number of patients waiting for much sought after surgery. However, I had an added
bonus in that my daughter, Melissa*, a fellow anaesthesiologist who trained at UCT, was on her first mission.
What were we doing in central Africa you might ask? Simple really! We had joined Operation Smile, a global non-profit
humanitarian medical service out of Norfolk, Virginia, that has been correcting cleft lip and palate and other facial deformities
in countries with limited medical resources around the world for almost 30 years. Operation Smile South Africa (OSSA), based
in Cape Town, was founded and registered as a section 21 company in March 2006. OSSA was established to serve Southern
and Central Africa including Madagascar. To date OSSA has sponsored missions to Madagascar, Swaziland, Rwanda, DRC,
Namibia, and also served parts of South Africa. OSSA is run by a dynamic group of young ladies who make our lives as medical
professionals as comfortable as possible in unfamiliar environments.
The contrasts of Africa are intriguing. Why is it that surgical and (forgive my bias!) more importantly, anaesthetic expertise to
perform safe surgery is lacking? Children and adults up to 70 years have uncorrected cleft lips and yet there is no shortage of
cell phones! In Kigali we even had a law student wait patiently in line with everyone else to have surgery. He was not going to
miss this opportunity. Thankfully he was able to write his law exam the following day, which we only realised when he politely
requested not to return for his follow-up appointment. Some of the stories behind the people who come for surgery
make you realise the impact that the missions have on their lives. There are many stories but perhaps the ones that have left the
biggest impression on me include the family who walked over 300km to have surgery because they couldn’t afford to pay for
transport; Simeon, the 21 year old, who had never seen a motor vehicle before he boarded the Peace Corps bus to travel to the
mission; and the initial terror and subsequent joy of 14 year old Vian, the Ugandan lad who, as a young boy, had escaped human
sacrifice (still a tribal custom in Uganda!), and travelled to Kigali with his uncle and guardian for surgery. At the end of each mission one realizes that we have a lot to be thankful for! I reflect on the mutual outpouring of goodwill from a team of volunteers from all walks of life, who give up much of their annual leave to change the lives of people they have never met and are never likely to see again. The beauty of Op Smile is in the people that volunteer. All work – and play – with a common purpose; lawyers serve as photographers, product managers as data capturers and of course surgeons, nurses and anaesthesiologists – all coordinated by a vibrant group of young ladies from Op Smile head office. Often referred to as the “Dream Team,” the South African team completed a record 252 surgeries in Kigali in just five operating days with incredible efficiency
without compromising safety. Each volunteer is affected by a mission in different ways. I left Kigali bursting with pride. Not
many fathers are blessed with the opportunity to share such an experience with his daughter* in the heart of Africa!"
*Tragically Bosie's twin son and daughter died in a motor vehicle accident while travelling together in South America.
