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Health Sciences awards first Bongani Mayosi Medical Students Academic Prize

12 December 2020 | Story André Damons

Bongani Mayosi Prize Latest News — Drs Kaamilah Joosub (in front) and Lynette Upman, medical students in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS, are the winners of the first Bongani Mayosi Medical Students Academic Prize for final-year medical students.

Two final-year medical students from the University of the Free State (UFS) became the first recipients of the prestigious Bongani Mayosi Medical Students Academic Prize which was bestowed on them 10 days before their graduation.

Drs Kaamilah Joosub and Lynette Upman, two final-year medical students in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS are the first medical students from the university to be awarded the prize.This is the first year it has been awarded.

Drs Joosub and Upman received their awards at a function on Friday (4 December 2020) from Prof Hanneke Brits, Phase III chair and specialist in the Department of Family Medicine, on behalf of Prof Gert van Zyl, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The Faculty of Health Sciences will host a virtual graduation on 14 December 2020.

Prestigious national award

The Bongani Mayosi Medical Students Academic Prize is a prestigious national award which aims to recognise final-year medical students who epitomise the academic, legendary, and altruistic life of Mayosi. The awards are presented to final-year MB ChB students from all South African medical faculties. Each student is allowed one vote for one classmate who, in their private opinion, best balances:

Academic achievement
Emotional intelligence ‑ good interpersonal skills
Social accountability ‑ the ability to respond helpfully to the needs of others

Winners are determined by the highest number of digital votes, with the first-prize winner receiving R6 000 and second prize coming in at R4 000.

Dr Lynette van der Merwe, undergraduate medical programme director in the School of Clinical Medicine at UFS, commented that Drs Joosub and Upman are worthy winners, as they have continuously exemplified the ideals recognised by this award during their undergraduate training.

The School of Clinical Medicine is very proud of its newest Kovsie doctors who successfully completed the academic year despite the immense challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This is thanks to the commitment and hard work of students and staff at the UFS.

Name behind the prize

The late Prof Bongani Mayosi was an outstanding doctor who rose rapidly through the ranks to become a top cardiologist, internationally recognised as a leading clinician scientist. He completed his undergraduate studies at the age of 22, having graduated cum laude in both the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MB ChB) and Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMedSci) degrees.

He trained as a physician and cardiologist at Groote Schuur Hospital and completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford in the UK. At the age of 38‚ he became the first black to be appointed professor and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT). In 2016, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT. Before taking up his deanship, he completed the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard University in the US.

As a medical student Prof Mayosi excelled academically, was supportive of his classmates and enthusiastically involved in student residence committees and politics as well as community outreach programmes. As a researcher, he initiated an international programme of research focusing on solutions for poverty-related heart diseases and trained local clinician scientists and research leaders.

Prof Mayosi had an exceptional mixture of academic brilliance and vision; ambition and humility; kindness and generosity; passion and compassion; drive and empathy that complemented his ability to persuade and inspire others, which no doubt contributed to his 400 publications.

News Archive

Afromontane Research Unit makes climate change inroads

2017-10-28

Description: Prof Mukwada Tags: Prof Mukwada

Prof Geofrey Mukwada

The Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) has recently made inroads in climate-change research. This has been achieved through work published by Professor Geofrey Mukwada and Professor Desmond Manatsa, whose research could make it possible to predict El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) several months before its occurrence.

Professor Manatsa is an ARU postdoctoral fellow currently collaborating with Professor Mukwada on an ongoing climate-change research project. The two experts noted that ENSO is one of the most important climate phenomena on earth, due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the world.

Climate change scientific breakthrough
“This is a tremendous breakthrough, because humanity as a whole has been looking for answers regarding the origins of climate-related hazards which are worsening, yet becoming more frequent and difficult to predict. In some cases, floods and droughts occur in the same season, and within the same geographical area. These extreme climate events are becoming more frequent, often leading to loss of life and threatening national economies and livelihoods,” said Professor Mukwada, coordinator of the ARU sub-theme on Living and Doing Business In Afromontane Environments.

During an interview with the Southern Times, Professor Manatsa revealed that the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is initiated and sustained in the tropical Pacific, a fact that has eluded climate scientists for years. “It was an unresolved puzzle which limited the successful prediction of ENSO events with reasonable lead time. Climate scientists were only able to know with some degree of certainty that the event would occur once it had started, just a few months before its impacts were felt,” Professor Manatsa said.

Prof Manatsa is upbeat that a lot of headway has now been made towards unravelling the mystery of ENSO’s origin. “The necessity of the inclusion of the solar energy changes due to ozone alterations in the upper atmosphere should significantly impact on the realistic version of ENSO in climate models. This in turn should not only provide more accurate ENSO forecasts for the region, but a longer lead time for users to prepare for the event,” he said.

ENSO is a climate phenomenon based in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Its events bring good rains and even floods over most parts of the world in some years and droughts in others, depending on whether the phenomenon is in a warm or cold phase. The warm phase is referred to as El Nino, when the waters over the tropical east Pacific are heated up, but when cooled, it is termed La Nina. La Nina was responsible for the favourable rains over much of Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, during the 2016/17 rainfall season. The El Nino occurrence a year before had devastating drought effects that was characterised by scorching heat and widespread water shortages. This work was published in a high-profile journal, Nature Scientific Reports.

ARU is a flagship inter- and trans-disciplinary research programme focusing on the under-researched area of montane communities. It was launched in June 2015 and is based on the Qwaqwa Campus.

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