F E AT U R E : H E A LT H S C I E N C E S
Image: Lauge Sorensen
to forgo huge profit margins.” Like a modern medical MacGyver, Craig seems unfazed by challenges: “There are days when you struggle – but I’ve always been a glass half full kind of guy. It requires far less energy,” he says. “There is something about doing something new, doing something you know nothing about and feeling ‘stupid’ again. We tend to get quite puffed up about our own importance and our own knowledge. And to start again somewhere when you know nothing is good for our character. We should probably all do it.”
“More universities should adopt it” The Graduate Entry Medical Programme, or GEMP, allows applicants who meet certain minimum requirements to enter into the third year of the MBBCh degree. “I really, really enjoyed it. It was well-structured and integrated so well. I enjoyed the diversity. We had people who had done fine art and music, we had physiotherapists, dentists and chiropractors - with their families. It brought a richness to the class that benefited everyone. I think more universities should adopt it.”
The Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital (NMCH) is a 220-bed specialist paediatric facility located at the Wits Education Campus on land donated by Wits in 2011. It celebrated its fifth anniversary in July 2022.
DR NONKULULEKO BOIKHUTSO
A living legacy
WITSReview caught up with the hospital’s current CEO, Dr Nonkululeko Boikhutso (MBBCh 2005, MM 2012), who has been at the hospital since its inception, initially as its clinical manager. She has shared in media interviews that she is the only child of a single mother and was raised in Soweto. Her passion for public health was sparked by two traumatic events in her childhood. When she was nine years old, she was in the Johannesburg CBD with her mother when she was injured in a bomb blast. A few years later, at age 14, she was diagnosed with an ovarian germ cell tumour. On both occasions, she was treated in public hospitals. Dr Boikhutso received her Fellowship in Public Health Medicine in 2012 and worked at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital as a clinical manager responsible for mother and child services. “I worked with Prof Peter Cooper (PhD 1999) and Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng (former clinical director) who supported me through the management journey. When some of the paediatricians started leaving for the NMCH my interest was piqued," she says.
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