Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
29 April 2022 | Story André Damons
Dr Asha Malan
Dr Asha Malan, Head of the division for Vascular Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), is the first woman vascular surgeon to head an Academic Unit in South Africa and the youngest Head of Vascular Surgery.

Dr Asha Malan, Head of the division for Vascular Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), is not only one of just seven qualified female vascular surgeons in the country; she is also the first female vascular surgeon to head an academic unit in South Africa and the youngest Head of Vascular Surgery yet.

Dr Malan says she is honoured to represent women in the field of Vascular Surgery – a historically male-dominated field. One of her main objectives now is to attract more women to this field. In 2020, she was simultaneously appointed the Acting Head of the Department for General Surgery when Dr Nicholas Pearce became the head of the Universitas Academic Hospital COVID-19 Task team. 

“To be very honest – I had not previously thought about this (being the first female to head a unit for Vascular Surgery). I have always been of the opinion that if I achieve something in life, it should be because I worked hard enough for it and was blessed with God-given opportunities.  This was one of the life lessons taught to me by my two amazing parents. 

“It is an absolute privilege to be in this position at such a young age. I have been in the fortunate position where hard work indeed paid off and to a large extent, I was incredibly lucky. I believe my age counts in my favour – I am keen to learn (which is a daily exercise) and take on new opportunities. I am still ‘naïve’ enough to dream big and market my dream of offering state-of-the-art vascular surgical care for all,” says Dr Malan.  

Passion for Vascular Surgery
According to her, she has been granted opportunities to develop her skills by visiting units in other countries including Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. Later this year she is off to the Netherlands, France and the US to build on this and teach these skills locally. 

Dr Malan is passionate about vascular surgery and calls it one of the most beautiful types of surgery. She decided to become a medical doctor at school when her Biology teacher, Mrs Em Volschenk, triggered an appreciation for the workings of the human body.

It is her obsessive and perfectionist personality that attracted her to vascular surgery. The love to fix things, she calls it.

“I have always gained great joy from making something cleaner, neater and better. Medicine, and more in particular, surgery, provides you with the absolute privilege to do so for the human body. Vascular surgery is one of the most beautiful types of surgery. It is neat and clean, but at the same time challenging. It provides the opportunity to perform surgery on any part of the body and develop your surgical skills. 

“In addition, it makes you calm and comfortable in high-stress situations.  The most tiring part of vascular surgery is, however, not the physical strain nor the hours, but the intense planning it requires – it is in some aspects like the engineering of surgery – you sometimes have to come up with solutions to problems that no textbook will contain. It is currently one of the fastest growing surgical subspecialties worldwide due to the innovation happening within the field. It is a way of thinking and I love every moment,” states Dr Malan.

She is well aware of the responsibility that comes with this important position and feels honoured to pave the way forward. Says Dr Malan: “I am currently one of only two female consultant surgeons in the Department of General Surgery and I strongly believe we bring a unique perspective. We also have a particular leadership style that is inclusive and encouraging – contributing to an environment where others can grow and strengthen the Department.”

Not many women in surgery
According to Dr Malan, surgery historically has a bad name due to the hours and demands of the job. Surgeons need to be available almost all the time – a schedule that fails to conform to the traditional expectations of women. This is even more so for vascular surgery, as many of our patients require emergency care that does not respect “working hours”. On the other hand, says Dr Malan, she believes most women possess the ability to multitask efficiently.

“Not only can we do a number of things at once, but can also do them well. Females have mastered the art of balancing the demands of both their work- and personal-lives more and more and society is generally more receptive to this as well. This provides a definite advantage to not only function, but flourish in the field of surgery and vascular surgery.”

The first step to get more women involved in this field, says Dr Malan, is to show it can be done.  Females are featuring in surgical leadership roles worldwide on an increasing front and prominent role models are key to igniting interest and self-belief. 

Harvard University Surgical Leadership Programme
Dr Malan graduated from the Harvard University Surgical Leadership Programme in April this year and says it was an amazing experience to liaise with colleagues in leadership roles within their respective surgical departments across the globe. It was an honour to represent the University of the Free State in this capacity.

According to her, Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, was instrumental in retaining her for the university after she qualified as a vascular surgeon. She received offers from other universities and private practice, but was keen to stay on as she envisaged a career in academics. “I had a dream of building a nationally recognised quality Vascular Surgery Unit that not only excels in clinical service delivery, but also in undergraduate- and postgraduate-training – this vision was already developing as we performed the first complex endovascular aortic repair in a state hospital in South Africa in 2019. Prof Petersen made time to listen to my dream and initiated the process for me to start realising it.”

She would like to give credit to her predecessors, particularly Prof Renald Barry who has been a mentor to her and with whom she had the privilege of operating until last year. In addition, she would like to thank her colleagues in the Department of Surgery and Vascular Surgery, who continue to inspire her every day.

News Archive

Heart diseases a time bomb in Africa, says UFS expert
2010-05-17

 Prof. Francis Smit

There are a lot of cardiac problems in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to the largest population of rheumatic heart disease patients in the world and therefore hosts the largest rheumatic heart valve population in the world. They are more than one million, compared to 33 000 in the whole of the industrialised world, says Prof. Francis Smit, Head of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS).

He delivered an inaugural lecture on the topic Cardiothoracic Surgery: Complex simplicity, or simple complexity?

“We are also sitting on a time bomb of ischemic heart disease with the WHO (World Health Organisation) estimating that CAD (coronary artery disease) will become the number-one killer in our region by 2020. HIV/Aids is expected to go down to number 7.”

Very little is done about it. There is neither a clear nor coordinated programme to address this expected epidemic and CAD is regarded as an expensive disease, confined to Caucasians in the industrialised world. “We are ignoring alarming statistics about incidences of adult obesity, diabetes and endemic hypertension in our black population and a rising incidence of coronary artery interventions and incidents in our indigenous population,” Prof. Smit says.

Outside South Africa – with 44 units – very few units (about seven) perform low volumes of basic cardiac surgery. The South African units at all academic institutions are under severe threat and about 70% of cardiac procedures are performed in the private sector.

He says the main challenge in Africa has become sustainability, which needs to be addressed through education. Cardiothoracic surgery must become part of everyday surgery in Africa through alternative education programmes. That will make this specialty relevant at all levels of healthcare and it must be involved in resource allocation to medicine in general and cardiothoracic surgery specifically.

The African surgeon should make the maximum impact at the lowest possible cost to as many people in a society as possible. “Our training in fields like intensive care and insight into pulmonology, gastroenterology and cardiology give us the possibility of expanding our roles in African medicine. We must also remember that we are trained physicians as well.

“Should people die or suffer tremendously while we can train a group of surgical specialists or retraining general surgeons to expand our impact on cardiothoracic disease in Africa using available technology maybe more creatively? We have made great progress in establishing an African School for Cardiothoracic Surgery.”

Prof. Smit also highlighted the role of the annual Hannes Meyer National Registrar Symposium that culminated in having an eight-strong international panel sponsored by the ICC of EACTS to present a scientific course as well as advanced surgical techniques in conjunction with the Hannes Meyer Symposium in 2010.

Prof. Smit says South Africa is fast becoming the driving force in cardiothoracic surgery in Africa. South Africa is the only country that has the knowledge, technology and skills base to act as the springboard for the development of cardiothoracic surgery in Africa.

South Africa, however, is experiencing its own problems. Mortality has doubled in the years from 1997 to 2005 and half the population in the Free State dies between 40 to 44 years of age.

“If we do not need health professionals to determine the quality and quantity of service delivery to the population and do not want to involve them in this process, we can get rid of them, but then the political leaders making that decision must accept responsibility for the clinical outcomes and life expectancies of their fellow citizens.

“We surely cannot expect to impose the same medical legal principles on professionals working in unsafe hospitals and who have complained and made authorities aware of these conditions than upon those working in functional institutions. Either fixes the institutions or indemnifies medical personnel working in these conditions and defends the decision publicly.

“Why do I have to choose the three out of four patients that cannot have a lifesaving operation and will have to die on their own while the system pretends to deliver treatment to all?”

Prof. Smit says developing a service package with guidelines in the public domain will go a long way towards addressing this issue. It is also about time that we have to admit that things are simply not the same. Standards are deteriorating and training outcomes are or will be affected.

The people who make decisions that affect healthcare service delivery and outcomes, the quality of training platforms and research, in a word, the future of South African medicine, firstly need rules and boundaries. He also suggested that maybe the government should develop health policy in the public domain and then outsource healthcare delivery to people who can actually deliver including thousands of experts employed but ignored by the State at present.

“It is time that we all have to accept our responsibilities at all levels… and act decisively on matters that will determine the quality and quantity of medical care for this and future generations in South Africa and Africa. Time is running out,” Prof. Smit says.
 

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept