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Voices from the Free State podcast: Episode five – featuring Dr Anchen Laubscher

07 June 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath

A passion for evidence-based medicine and the notion of value in healthcare is what drives Dr Anchen Laubscher, our guest in the fifth episode of the Voices from the Free State podcast. Anchen is driven to ensure that healthcare is scientifically proven, of high quality, cost effective, and tailored to a patient’s needs.

François van Schalkwyk and Keenan Carelse, UFS alumni leading the university’s United Kingdom Alumni Chapter, have put their voices together to produce and direct the podcast series. Intended to reconnect alumni with the university and their university experience, the podcasts will be featured on the first Monday of every month, ending in November 2021. Our featured alumni share and reflect on their experiences at the UFS, how it has shaped their lives, and relate why their ongoing association with the UFS is still relevant and important. The podcasts are authentic conversations – they provide an opportunity for the university to understand and learn about the experiences of its alumni and to celebrate the diversity and touchpoints that unite them.

Our podcast guest

Anchen joined Netcare in 2007 as an aeromedical doctor and has been with the group for almost 14 years. As Group Medical Director of Netcare Ltd, Anchen is responsible for the strategic oversight and operational execution of all clinical and quality-related matters across the different divisions of Netcare. Leading a team of subject matter experts, Anchen oversees the group’s key deliverables related to the value of care, encompassing quality outcomes, patient safety, patient experience, and episode cost efficiency, with all components of ‘value’ digitally enabled and data driven.

Anchen is a member of the Hospital Association of South Africa (HASA) subcommittee for Clinical Quality and the South African Committee of Medical Deans (SACOMD) initiative, which was constituted to address the human resource dilemma specifically related to the training of doctors in South Africa. She is a Council member of the University of the Free State, where she also serves on the Senate and holds director appointments in the Mother and Child Academic Hospital (MACAH) Foundation, the My Walk My Soul collaboration between Netcare and Adcock-Ingram and the University of Cape Town Medical Centre Ltd. Anchen played a pioneering leadership role in South Africa’s response to the 2014 global Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak, which continues in her role as Gold Command in Netcare and as member of various national committee and advisory structures related to the COVID-19 pandemic preparedness and response. For her role in the South African EVD response, she was recognised with an honorary award from the South African Military Health Services (SAMHS).

Clinically, Anchen continues to contribute to the specialty of emergency medicine, specifically pre-hospital and aeromedicine. She continues to be involved at her alma mater through ad hoc lecturing in electives, research support at GIBS, and participating in health-care courses and conferences such as the 2020 Healthcare Industry Update and Innovation Conference.

Stay tuned for episode six to be released on 5 July 2021.

For further information regarding the podcast series, or to propose other alumni guests, please email us at alumnipodcast@ufs.ac.za

Listen to all the Voices from the Free State podcasts.

News Archive

UFS research project aims to stimulate reflection on theological studies

2017-06-20

Description: Book, Theology and post Apartheid condition Tags: Book, Theology and post Apartheid condition

The first book in the ‘UFS Theological
Exploration’ academic series, called Theology
and the Post(Apartheid) Condition, has just
been released.
Photo: Supplied

The first study book with the title Theology and the Post(Apartheid) Condition, which is part of a new academic series by the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of the Free State, is now available. Volume 1, compiled by Professor Rian Venter as editor, is the first book in the ‘UFS Theological Exploration’ academic series, which the faculty plans to release.

Transformation
Professor Venter says the transformation of processes and practices in communicating and creating knowledge has become an urgent task for public universities in a democratic South Africa. Much reflection has already gone into the methods and scope of transformation in higher education.

Although the faculty has done work on the implications of this for theology, there is one area of investigation that has not received much attention. It concerns the role of theological disciplines such as Old and New Testament, Missiology and Systematic Theology and Practical Theology, and specifically the relationship between academic disciplines and societal growth. The book focuses on these challenges and contains the intellectual undertakings of the contributors who are all lecturers, research fellows and post-graduate students linked to the faculty.

The questions
The key questions addressed are: what are the contours of the (post)apartheid condition and what are the implications for responsible discipline practices in theology. Professor Venter says the chapters in the book are logically arranged and moves from wider to more specific concerns. The first three chapters suggest broad perspectives on the challenges for theology in higher education, chart the changes, and make some suggestions for the future.

A dynamic field of study
The book states that theology has already experienced profound and radical changes over the past decade, which is known to us. All the chapters demonstrate these fundamental shifts, which have taken place in all theological sub-disciplines. Professor Venter says the contributions in the book illustrate that theology is a dynamic field of study, and is pursued with enthusiasm and commitment. Not all disciplines in theology are investigated for the book. However, the studies reflect the interests of the theologians in the Faculty of Theology at the UFS. Professor Venter hopes that the volume might stimulate further reflection of a similar nature by other theologians.

New insights
Through the ‘UFS Theological Exploration’ research series, the faculty hopes to stimulate new insights and new developments in academic progress and overall human growth. Series editor Professor Francois Tolmie says it is a fact that strong university research is necessary to achieve academic progress and advance human prospering. He says the faculty's research series will make a valuable contribution to these causes. Professor Tolmie says the ‘UFS Theological Explorations’ contains research of the highest academic standard which has been peer-reviewed to make significant educational contributions to core theological issues in South Africa and overseas.

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