HoD – Awaiting appointment

Acting HoD – Prof TC Hardcastle

Dept Admin Assistants - Ms Pat Narayansamy and Chantel Mathe

The Headquarters of the Department is the Medical School. The main pillars of the Department are:

• Teaching & Learning,
• Research
• Service delivery
• Community engagement as well as
• University administration

Service delivery takes most of the effort of the staff in the Department. This service is provided within the umbrella of the Department of Health. The primary objective is to deliver holistic Healthcare through the whole of the KwaZulu-Natal Province. In its approach to community engagement the Department is using the principles espoused by The University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Department of Health. Community engagement is in the form of outreach programmes to peripheral areas. Members of staff in the Department of Surgery also play an active role in the official structures of the University and the Medical School thereby contributing to both policy and strategy formulation.

The Department is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. There are various teaching platforms for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching: Durban,  Pietermaritzburg. Stanger, Ngewlezane and Port Shepstone. It offers general surgery training to 40 registrars and qualifications in various Surgical  subspecialties.

Academic activities include the Friday Forums and Saturday morning Seminars in Surgery, currently on the Zoom platform and open to all interested parties. Within the numerous training hospitals other local academic programs assist in preparing undergraduate and postgraduate trainees for clinical practice and College of Surgery exams.

The Department of Surgery has a proud legacy of surgical training on the African continent. Since its establishment in the early 1950’s this Department was the only site in South Africa where Blacks could specialise in Surgery. Thus, our Department of Surgery is synonymous with the training in Surgery of the historically marginalised.

The Department is sensitive to the legacy of apartheid and its impact on tertiary education and wider society. To this end, every opportunity is utilized to build the capacity and enhance the profile of those historically disadvantaged to ensure that the transformation initiative is promoted. With this, we resonate the REACH campaign and inspire all staff to practice the five core principles of Respect, Excellence, Accountability, Client-orientation and Honesty.

Training hospitals include: King Edward VIII; Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital; Addington; Prince Mshyeni Memorial; R K Khan; Greys; Edendale; Port Shepstone; Ngwelezane and Stanger.

Future sites include the new Pixley KaSeme Hospital.

From the Research perspective the department actively ensures completion of the MMed degree by all registrars with a research component, presented either as a mini-thesis or in the form of a published journal manuscript. There is an additional active MMedSci research degree program for medical officers and other researchers, plus a growing PhD program integrated under the School of Clinical Medicine. We aim to pursue clinical research and continuous audit of practice and also undertake educational research within Surgery