Dear Staff and Student Colleagues 
 
The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) congratulates the 27 final-year medical students from Gaza who have completed their nine-month clinical elective studies at the Univesity of Cape Town (UCT). These elective studies mark the attainment of the clinical requirements towards their qualification for their medical degrees officially awarded through their home universities in Gaza.

The completion of this elective at UCT was celebrated on Saturday, 3 May, in a deeply moving event hosted by the Gift of the Givers and attended online by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Al-Azhur University — Professor Mohamed Zughbur — and staff from the Islamic University of Gaza. Family members also joined online from various global locations. In remarks made during the event, I reminded students of their call to professionalism in often difficult environments. Also participating in the ceremony were two of these students placed at the University of the Witwatersrand. Addressing the group, University of Pretoria Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Professor Flavia Senkubuge encouraged students to remain true to their humanity and take care of themselves. Dr Faizel Suliman from the Islamic Medical Association led the students in the pledging of a modified professional oath of practice.

My communication of 26 July 2024 outlined how the placement of these students at UCT was a humanitarian response to their displacement from learning at their universities in Gaza as a result of the ongoing war in that region. They were integrated into our regular elective student process through which our Faculty offers the South African medical experience to students from across the world, most notably Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
 
In completing their programme, these students have shown immense tenacity and commitment to becoming health professionals.

I am deeply grateful to the many whose support enabled the students to settle into the programme and complete it successfully. I wish to acknowledge the working group established locally to ensure academic rigour with regards to the process, and coordinated by Dr Bob Baigrie: Dr Kerrin Begg and Dr Dina-Ruth Lulua from the FHS, as well as Professor Shameq Sayeed (a clinical academic from Oxford University in the United Kingdom working with the student-staff OxPal group) who collaborated with Drs Begg and Lulua to develop an adaptive and responsive academic programme; our Student Development and Support Office who ensured adequate psychosocial support was provided; the Gift of the Givers for their invaluable partnership in the provision of resources — material, logistical and in the form of psychosocial support; and the PalMed Academy's Gaza Educate Medics (GEM) initiative for additional remote support and learning.

Importantly, I am deeply grateful to Dr Begg for her leadership, as well as our teaching colleagues and 2024 final year medical students for their contributions and support offered to these students during their time here.
 
We wish these 27 imminent medical doctors well, and much fortitude, as they begin the next phase of their career as health professionals.

Kaise ke gangans 
Associate Professor Lionel Green-Thompson 
Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences