A University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences final year Master of Medicine (MMed-Surgery) student, Noel Ralph Zulu, made the country proud after winning the top prize at the South African Specialist Surgeons-in-Training Conference last month.
Zulu’s presentation that beat competitors from South Africa’s nine medical schools was An Antireflux Surgery in 2012. He received monetary award and a certificate at the event held at the University of Stellenbosch.
The nine medical schools in South Africa host the event on a rotational basis. College of Health Science at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) has become the 10th medical school attending the conference on a regular basis since the late 1990s. The UZ delegation had 15 postgraduate students under the tutelage of Professor Godfrey Muguti.
“For a Zimbabwean student to prevail over all the surgical trainees in South Africa was a remarkable feat of achievement, not only for UZ, but indeed for Zimbabwe as a whole,” said Muguti yesterday.
“It is noteworthy to recall that when this conference was held at Walter Sisulu University, East London, South Africa, in July 2010, UZ postgraduate student Raphael Makota was runner up to the prize winner.
This speaks volumes about UZ students at these conferences, and has raised the profile of UZ in general and the College of Health Sciences in particular.”
