Dr Mohammed Cassiem D’arcy, a trailblazing pathologist who was denied a deserved place at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on account of his racial classification as ‘Coloured’, recently was hosted by the UCT Department of Pathology. The Department paid homage to his remarkable, as well as heart-rending, journey, from his medical and pathology career to his deeply felt impact on literature, art and culture.

Various speakers — including the Head of the Department of Pathology, the Dean of the FHS, and the FHS Deputy Dean for Social Accountability and Health Systems — paid tribute to Dr D’arcy and presented him with a commemorative token. Now an octogenarian, Dr D’arcy remarked: “Never in my 85 years have I experienced an event so filled with joy, laughter and mutual respect.”

Professor Komala Pillay, the Head of the Department of Pathology at UCT, says: “We feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to host Dr D’arcy and his family in the Pathology Learning Centre, where his passion for teaching anatomical pathology, research and electron microscopy form part of our daily practice. It felt important to me that the current staff and students share this moment with him as he described his experience. We all took a moment to reflect on the significant progress made at the University of Cape Town and the Faculty of Health Sciences since then. Most importantly, we wanted to celebrate his lifetime achievements despite such adversity. We also learnt that Dr D’arcy’s sister, Ms Gameda Benefeld, works in the Division of Human Genetics in the Department of Pathology.”

Born in 1940 in District Six, Cape Town, Dr D’arcy graduated with a medical degree from UCT in 1963. As was the experience of ‘Black’students throughout South Africa during the apartheid years, as a medical student he endured discriminatory treatment ranging from being barred from attending to ‘White’ patients to being coerced into signing a disclaimer that absolved the university from its legal obligations to its ‘Coloured’ students (despite these students paying the same tuition fees).

After graduating, Dr D’arcy, disillusioned by the racial politics of South Africa, travelled to Canada to complete his internship. He then undertook postgraduate training in pathology at Washington University (WU) in the United States of America (USA). Once he completed his training in pathology, Dr D’arcy, having aspired to be a teacher since his youth, notified his superiors that he intended to return to South Africa to teach pathology. He had accumulated thousands of teaching slides and problem cases and had developed groundbreaking insights into kernicterus — a severe complication of untreated jaundice in newborns that damages the central nervous system. He was confident that he could add value to the South African academy and recalls being described by WU teaching staff as one of the finest registrars that the pathology department had ever had.

It is a regrettable fact that Dr D’arcy, upon his return to Cape Town, was offered only a trainee position by UCT’s Department of Pathology. This was despite him having been exposed to technologies that South African scientists had not yet been exposed to. He was told, categorically, that there were no prospects of progression for ‘Black’ professionals.

Dr D’arcy walked away from the insulting offer and spent the rest of his career as a general practitioner in Lansdowne, serving the marginalised and working-class. He would travel to townships to see patients and risk his safety during times of unrest. Beyond medicine, Dr D’arcy took up painting, wrote novels and contributed articles to Muslim News.

On 9 September 2025 Dr D’arcy was conferred with a Doctor of Medicine (honoris causa) by UCT in recognition of his resilience in the face of hardship and his uncompromising dedication to service to humanity.