Dear Staff and Student Colleagues 

The UCT Faculty of Health Sciences and Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH) are delighted to share that Professor Mashiko Setshedi, a joint employee of UCT and GSH, has been appointed as the new Head of the Department of Medicine, effective 1 July 2024. She is currently Head of the Medical Gastroenterology Division and succeeds Professor Ntobeko Ntusi who assumes his new role as President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council from July. We express our profound gratitude to Professor Ntusi for his seminal contribution to UCT and GSH in steering the Department of Medicine to new heights during his eight-year tenure.

As Head of the Department of Medicine, Professor Setshedi will play a critical role in shaping the vision, direction and success of the department across clinical, academic, research and administrative domains.

Professor Setshedi completed her MBChB and Fellowship of the College of Physicians (specialist training) at the University of Kwazulu-Natal. She joined UCT in 2005 initially as a clinical research fellow in hepatology (a discipline focusing on the liver) and subsequently as a gastroenterology registrar. In 2009, she went to Brown University in the United States of America to study for her PhD in gastroenterology, which she completed in 2011.

Upon her return to UCT, she forged a large teaching portfolio mainly at undergraduate level, where she served as a convenor, tutor and examiner. In 2015, she was awarded the Oxford Nuffield Medical Scholarship and spent two-and-a-half years at Oxford University on a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer immunology. She returned to UCT in May 2018 to assume her current role as the St Anne’s Trust Chair and Head of Medical Gastroenterology, where she has led the Division in all aspects of its functioning.
 
Professor Setshedi was nominated for the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF)-BHP Billiton Awards, TW Kambule NRF-NSTF Award for an Emerging Researcher in 2013 and has been the recipient of the Helen and Morris Mauerberger Clinical Scholarship, Hasso Plattner Research Fellowship and Claude Leon Merit Award.

Halala, Professor Setshedi, on your significant career achievement. This new season ushers in great promise as you take up leadership of a department that plays a substantial role on the joint public health platform. We look forward to working alongside you as you navigate this new chapter.  

A/Prof Lionel Green- Thompson
Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences

& 

Dr Shaheem de Vries
CEO: Groote Schuur Hospital