The Faculty continues to make a contribution to global health. We recently acquired the newly established World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Research. Awarded to the Centre for Infectious Diseases Epidemiology & Research (CIDER) in the School of Public Health & Family Medicine, this is a prestigious acknowledgement of CIDER’s longstanding contribution to WHO policy on HIV, through its research and innovation outputs.

The Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation recently launched their beautiful new HIV Research Centre in Masiphumelele, Kommetjie. Housing a custom-built Youth Centre and a Peace Garden, the new building has taken years of passion and vision to materialise from its humble prefabricated beginnings.

Dr Carla Tsampiris, senior lecturer in Medical and Health Humanities contributed to the publication of the first  English-language special issue of the globally respected BMJ Medical Humanities Journal . The issue dealt exclusively with work on and about medical and health humanities in Africa, an interdisciplinary field that is breaking down silos to address health concerns.

Technological innovation is one of the areas where we have become celebrated. Hot off the press is the news that cardiologist Professor Peter Zilla was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria. This acknowledges his ground-breaking work in the development of innovative concepts for trans-catheter heart valve technologies. We also heard that Dr Sudesh Sivarasu was part of a team that developed an innovative tool for clinicians to administer medication intravenously using mobile technology.

Our annual research days afford students opportunities to showcase their work as part of building research capacity in our Faculty. One such event was the postgraduate research day hosted in Public Health and Family Medicine, where teachers proudly saw their mentees bloom in the academic space.

The Vice-Chancellor,  Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng and I recently visited the Victoria Hospital teaching platform, as part of familiarising ourselves with Faculty activities. It was affirming to hear how valued our students are for the contribution they make to health services, as well as see the passion of the educators.

Talent in the Faculty stretches beyond our disciplines to the artistic. Post-doctoral research fellow Dr Sarah Heany from the Department of Psychiatry and the Neurosciences Institute has donated her touching real-life painting of the late Professor Bongani Mayosi to the Faculty. We are most thankful to Sarah for this kind gesture.

The academic year is in full swing, and our first-year students were appreciative of the warm reception received, especially by the Vice-Chancellor in her welcome address to them. These students will soon be completing their first quarter at university, and I trust they have settled well into this new environment.

This brings me to the Hierarchy Project of the Health Sciences Student Council, which has collated accounts of discrimination experienced by students in the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences programmes. This is a reminder of the substantive work still required for us as individuals and within our system to tackle attitudes and behaviors which exclude others.