Dean of caring
- By Heather Dugmore
“I’ve spent a lifetime at Wits; this is my home,” says Professor of Immunology Ahmed Wadee, who was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences in June 2011. He has been at Wits for 35 years, starting in 1975 when he came to Wits to do his Masters in Medicine (1979), followed by his PhD (1982).
I will always remember the hint of healing incense from the Himalayas when I think of Professor Ahmed Wadee. For when you enter his office at the end of a long corridor in the Faculty of Health Sciences building, your sense of smell tells you this is a different sort of Dean. “I light incense first thing in the morning when I come to work,” says Wadee, who paints, draws, does tai chi and attends classical music concerts and who went to school in the Himalayan mountains. “I grew up in Fordsburg, where my mother still lives, but my father did not want me to go to school there. He wanted me to get the best education possible and he decided to send me to boarding school at Lawrence College in the Himalayas. It was based on the British education system and it was absolutely Dickensian, with harsh living conditions and routine canings.” Wadee dreamed of the time when he would return home, and his memories of Fordsburg are captured in one of the drawings he did that he has in his office. It is of the house across the road from his family home in Fordsburg. After completing his schooling he went to the University of Toronto to do his undergraduate studies in medicine, and finally returned to South Africa and Wits to do his Masters. It was here that he learnt the power of mentors, which underpins his approach to leading the faculty today.
Professor Arthur Rabson, who was the first Professor of Immunology at Wits, and fellow immunologist Professor Reuben Sher took Wadee under their wing and mentored him.
“They made me work like a dog but they were incredibly good to me and so enthusiastic about their work that it made me equally enthusiastic,” he recalls. After completing his PhD at Wits, he headed to the Harvard School of Public Health for two years, after which he came back to Wits and became the second Professor of Immunology at Wits in 1990.
He developed an exceptional bond with Rabson and Sher and named his daughter Reubina (who is now a pathologist in the faculty) after Sher. “Reuben has since passed away but I am in daily contact with Arthur, who is still my mentor today and who teaches at the age of 70 in Boston,” says Wadee.
The Faculty of Health Sciences is blessed with a lineage of great scientists, teachers and mentors. Wadee believes that the University’s retirement policy does not serve the Faculty as it prematurely loses outstanding staff members who have so much to offer. He cites Professor Duncan Mitchell, Emeritus Professor of Physiology, Honorary Professorial Research Fellow in the Brain Function Research Group and a National Research Foundation A1-rated scientist as one example. Professor John Pettifor, former Head of the Department of Paediatrics, is another … and there are many others.
“We need to keep them for as long as possible because they define excellence,” says Wadee, whose vision for the Faculty of Health Sciences is based on excellence in teaching, research, scholarship and administration.
“Clarity on what excellence is will ensure that we deconstruct the notion that it has an association with race, gender, disability or socio-economic background,” he adds. “The definition of excellence should be used as the basis for appointments, promotion and the identification of individuals with potential, not only in our student body but in our staff across the board – from teaching to administration.
“We need highly qualified, productive staff with international recognition and we need to increase our research staff and postgraduate research students if we want to get into the top 100 universities list and to be recognised as the ‘Harvard of Africa’. Towards achieving this we are offering several fellowships for graduates to complete their PhDs,” says Wadee, who has supervised many postgraduate students.
He aims to get to the point where the Wits Health Sciences Faculty is the first choice for students and staff, based on its excellence and because they experience it as a warm and caring place. This, he says, will give the faculty the edge required to become the leader in all aspects of its work, not only in South Africa and Africa, but also throughout the world.
Health Sciences currently admits about 600 undergraduate students a year. Last year it increased its first-year admissions from 160 to 200 students to include the 40 students funded by the Minister of Health as part of his planned development programme. The faculty also has many foreign students, who come from all over the world to do their electives here. “We hope the South African bug bites many of them and that they return to contribute to the health issues in South Africa and the continent,” he says.
While it is all-important to Wadee that the faculty attracts the best minds and produces committed healthcare professionals, it is clear from how he conducts himself that it is equally important to him that health sciences students emerge as caring and compassionate human beings.
Wadee’s compassion spontaneously reveals itself during the interview when a call comes through that a foreign student studying at the faculty has been injured in a road accident and taken to a private hospital. The hospital needs some form of surety before treating the student, and Wadee produces his own Discovery Health card and reads out the number.
This leads us to the issue of public and private hospitals and Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi’s strategy for the health sector.
“Healthcare in this country is in such a shambles. It has not been managed in the public hospitals and clinics and because of this it has badly deteriorated,” he says. “Fortunately I think we have turned a corner and the government is far more responsive to addressing the deficiencies and failings in our public health system than ever before.”
As part of the way forward, he explains, there is an urgent need to focus on increasing the public/private partnerships between the universities, private hospitals, the Gauteng Department of Health, the National Health Laboratory Service and the Health Professions Council of South Africa.
The Wits School of Public Health, which moves to its new building this year, will play an important role in fostering these relationships.
“As a faculty we see ourselves as integral to the development of a public health service that can properly serve the people of South Africa,” Wadee adds. “Many people still think the faculty is only about medicine, but it includes all the healthcare fields, such as nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, pharmacy and dentistry.”
The minister’s healthcare plan includes populating clinics and hospitals throughout the country with all the health service skills required. Wadee recognises the need to contribute to these skills by increasing the faculty’s intake while continuing to produce top, committed students.
He says that apart from academic tutoring the faculty offers one-on-one student support and mentoring for all aspects of their lives. He has created the Office of Student Support at the faculty where students come and discuss issues ranging from academic to emotional to financial. The office opens at 6am.
“Some of our students are desperate because they haven’t received their bursaries or they aren’t coping academically. Some simply don’t have food or they have personal problems or they don’t have medical insurance,” says Wadee, who has in-depth knowledge of student issues, having served as the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs for 19 years.
Regarding the government’s proposed national health insurance scheme, he says: “I am in favour of it because it focuses on primary health care and rural medicine. We will play a large role in supporting the system.”
Wadee says it will take a while to work out the economic details of the scheme. “We have a focus group looking at primary healthcare delivery and how we can contribute. The minister has promised to start putting steps in place so that we can move forward, but we are still waiting for this to happen.”
Fortunately he does not have to wait for anyone to drive his vision in his first year as Dean. “It’s a very exciting time and I’m looking forward to this year.” On a personal note he is looking forward to his daughter completing her MMed in TB at Wits. “I am very proud of her and my aim is to one day publish a paper together, authored by Wadee & Wadee.”