WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN'S
Division of General Surgery
Forging Tomorrow's Surgical Leaders Today
At the heart of our Division lies a commitment to providing exceptional surgical care to communities locally and globally. With a focus on inclusivity and excellence, our team of renowned surgeons and educators uphold the highest standards of patient care and academic pursuit.
The City of Cape Town
Cape Town, rated the best city in the world by The Telegraph in 2023, is also one of the most unequal cities in the world. Our team cares for the 85% of the population who do not have private medical insurance. The high burden of trauma, non communicable and infectious disease present significant challenges, but also rich learning opportunities for our graduates, who serve our community during their training.
A message from our HOD
The Division of General Surgery, based at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, delivers high quality surgical care to the patients of the Western Cape and beyond, striving at all times for compassionate, patient-centred, innovative and excellent surgical care and we believe that our Division, the largest in the Department of Surgery at the University of Cape Town, provides generalist and subspecialist care of a world class standard.
As General Surgery, UCT, we are enthusiastically committed to our responsibility to train future doctors and surgeons and are passionate about providing excellence in teaching and training through excellence in clinical service.
We are also deeply conscious of the poverty and socioeconomic inequality prevalent in the communities we serve. We strive to ensure that our clinical and academic endeavors speak to this reality whether this be through community outreach, academic research, advocacy or direct clinical service.
As General Surgery, UCT we centre our identity as an academic centre on the African continent and through our international training programmes aim to connect, support and collaborate with surgeons throughout the continent.
Professor Lydia Cairncross
