Professor Mashiko Setshedi

About Professor Setshedi

Professor Mashiko Setshedi is the Chair and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital, taking up the role on 1 July 2024. She is the first woman to lead the department since its founding in 1920.

A specialist physician and gastroenterologist, Professor Setshedi qualified in medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 1996, completed her Fellowship of the College of Physicians in 2003, and earned a Master of Public Health with distinction from UCT in 2008. She joined UCT in August 2005 as a clinical research fellow in hepatology, and went on to complete her doctorate in 2011 jointly between UCT and the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, on the molecular signalling underlying alcohol- and hepatitis B-related liver disease.

In 2015, she was awarded an Oxford Nuffield Medical Scholarship and spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow in cancer immunology at the University of Oxford. She returned to UCT in May 2018 as the first woman appointed to the St Anne’s Trust Chair, and Head of Medical Gastroenterology at Groote Schuur Hospital — a role she held until taking up the Chair of the Department of Medicine in 2024.

Her UCT career has overlapped with two transformational predecessors as Head of Department: the late Professor Bongani Mayosi (Head 2006–2016, then Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences until his death in 2018) and Professor Ntobeko Ntusi (Head 2016–2024).

Professor Setshedi has been recognised with the NSTF-BHP Billiton TW Kambule NRF-NSTF Award for Emerging Researcher (2013), the Helen and Morris Mauerberger Clinical Scholarship, the Hasso Plattner Research Fellowship, and the Claude Leon Merit Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

“I believe in the absolute respect for all individuals, which forms the foundation of my leadership principles. Ultimately, my purpose is to make a meaningful difference in the lives of students, colleagues and patients through my work in the field of Medicine.” Professor Mashiko Setshedi, personal statement, April 2024

Career and education

1. 1996MBChBUniversity of KwaZulu-Natal
2. 2003Fellowship of the College of PhysiciansCollege of Medicine of South Africa
3. August 2005Joins UCTClinical Research Fellow in Hepatology
4. 2008Master of Public Health (with distinction); Certificate of GastroenterologyUCT & CMSA
5. 2009–2011Doctoral researchUCT and Alpert Medical School of Brown University
6. 2015Oxford Nuffield Medical ScholarshipPost-doctoral fellowship in cancer immunology, University of Oxford
7. May 2018St Anne’s Trust Chair, Head of Medical GastroenterologyUCT & Groote Schuur Hospital — first woman in the role
8. 2021Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of EdinburghRCPE
9. 1 July 2024Chair and Head, Department of MedicineUCT & Groote Schuur Hospital — first woman in the role since the department’s founding in 1920

A leadership grounded in respect and mentorship

Professor Setshedi has spoken publicly about her commitment to mentorship as the throughline of her career: “I am most proud of my role as a mentor.”

Her published leadership statement names a single principle: “the absolute respect for all individuals.” It informs how she has chaired departmental meetings, postgraduate exam boards, and journal editorial boards across her career — and it is the lens she has signalled for the way the Department of Medicine will work under her stewardship.

A century of Internal Medicine at UCT and Groote Schuur

The Department of Medicine at UCT was established in 1920 and operates as a joint clinical and academic platform with Groote Schuur Hospital. It sits within the UCT Faculty of Health Sciences on the Anzio Road campus in Observatory, Cape Town.

The department’s headship has been held in recent years by Professor Bongani Mayosi (2006–2016, before he became Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2016 until his death in 2018) and Professor Ntobeko Ntusi (2016–2024), who succeeded Mayosi as Head and went on to be appointed President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council on 1 July 2024. Professor Setshedi took up the Headship the same day.

The department is housed in the Old Main Building of the Groote Schuur Hospital precinct.

From MBChB to specialist physician

The Department of Medicine teaches medical students at undergraduate level through UCT’s MBChB programme and trains specialist physicians at postgraduate level, including registrars preparing for the Fellowship of the College of Physicians and sub-specialty fellows across the breadth of internal medicine.

Professor Setshedi has been deeply involved in teaching across her UCT career: 385 hours of formal undergraduate teaching across 3rd, 4th and 6th-year MBChB rotations between 2005 and 2015, regular FCP examiner roles, and convenor responsibilities for the Intercalated BMedSc (Hons) / MBChB Track since 2018. She currently supervises or co-supervises 13 enrolled postgraduate students at UCT (PhD, MPhil and MMed candidates). She is also a Regional Advisor to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in South Africa, on a five-year term that began in 2021.

From the liver, to the immune system, to the African gut

Professor Setshedi’s research has moved through three phases. Her doctoral work, completed jointly with Brown University in 2011, examined the cellular and molecular signalling underlying alcohol- and hepatitis B-related liver disease. Her Oxford post-doc (2015–2018) was in cancer immunology. She now leads research on Helicobacter pylori infection in African populations, with a particular focus on antibiotic resistance and what consensus management approaches developed for European cohorts mean (or do not mean) for African clinical practice.

She has authored 49 peer-reviewed publications (h-index 15, i10-index 27 as at April 2024), including recent first-author papers in Antibiotics and Digestive Diseases and senior-author contributions to two 2022 Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology papers on inflammatory bowel disease in sub-Saharan Africa. She serves as Country Principal Investigator for the Rome Foundation Global IBS Study and as Associate Editor of the Digestive Diseases journal.

Clinically, she introduced double-balloon enteroscopy at Groote Schuur Hospital in 2008 after training in Amsterdam, and led the team that performed Africa’s first spiral small-bowel enteroscopy in June 2021.

A continental hub for Internal Medicine

The Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT is among the longest-established medical faculties on the African continent. Its joint platform with Groote Schuur Hospital — which became internationally recognised as the site of the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant in December 1967 — anchors a teaching, research and specialist-training pipeline that extends across South Africa and into the broader continent.

Professor Setshedi’s continental work runs through her seat on the African Helicobacter and Microbiota Study Group (AHMSG): board member since 2021, secretary-general from 2023, and president-elect. She has served on the World Gastroenterology Organisation’s Train the Trainers committee from 2022 (current term to 2025) and the Africa Research Excellence Fund College of Experts since 2016. She is also South African Representative to the Healthy Stomach Initiative and a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation.

Department of Medicine

The Department of Medicine does not handle undergraduate admissions to UCT’s MBChB programme. For admissions, please contact UCT Admissions directly at uct.ac.za/admissions.