Celebrating the life of Prof Bongani Mayosi – The annual Bongani Mayosi Memorial Lecture
The Annual Bongani Mayosi Memorial Lecture co-hosted by the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the Bongani Mayosi Foundation sets out to celebrate African Scholarship and Mayosi’s ideals of equality, social justice, transformation, and excellence in the pursuit of knowledge. Professor Salim Abdool Karim delivered the lecture in Cape Townheld on 28 January paying tribute to Mayosi’s phenomenal legacy in cardiology and his major research contributions in cardiomyopathy, rheumatic heart disease and tuberculous pericarditis.
The lecture followed the launch of Mayosi’s biography ‘Doctor of Hearts’ at Exclusive Books, in Cape Town. In his foreword, Abdool Karim traces Mayosi’s journey from an impressionable first year medical student, to an accomplished academic and appointment as head of Internal Medicine at UCT. “The first time I met Mayosi was 30 years earlier, in 1984. I was involved as a senior medical student in the orientation programme for the new first-year group and he made an impression on me almost immediately as a bright and curious new medical student. It was another 15 years before I saw him again when I served on the panel that interviewed him for his Oxford Nuffield Fellowship…” wrote Abdool Karim.
“Bongani Mayosi was a selfless leader, devoted teacher/mentor, brilliant medical scientist and caring cardiologist who put his trainees’ and patients’ needs first, while caring little for prestige and high office,” said Abdool Karim. “Mayosi was and will remain a giant in South African science, with over 382 peer-reviewed articles that had garnered over 40,000 citations. His h-index exceeds 70, placing him not just among South Africa’s top black researchers, but among all South Africa’s top scientists of all time.”