Limpopo Leader - Spring 2005 - University of Limpopo

Professor Ulrich Mennen
a psychologist and even a local minister of religion.
And the doctor wasn’t necessarily the boss.
The concept worked spectacularly well. It was
partly what made us world famous.’
Today, Mennen is the secretary-general of the
prestigious International Federation of Societies for
Surgery of the Hand. It’s a position he’s held for the
past two years, but he’s been on the Federation’s
executive council for the past eight.
‘The aim of the Federation is to encourage
countries to establish their own national societies.
Then the Federation provides them with a home – and
with contact with others working in the same field.’
Mennen explained that the Federation comprised
no fewer than 35 specialist committees looking at such
subjects as hand anatomy, congenital deformities, the
skin, bones and joints of hands, tumours and
infections, training centres and outreach. ‘This last
committee – the outreach one – we call our Handsaround-the-World
Committee. Isn’t that nice?’ he
added with a smile.
‘I have made it a special aim of my tenure as
secretary-general to encourage much more outreach
into Africa. The potential is huge and attitudes in
Africa are generally so positive. Usually, when I come
back from conferences or workshops in Africa I feel so
refreshed. Let me tell you about some of my African
experiences.’
He detailed three.
The first concerned an Ethiopian postgraduate
student – a man by the name of Dr Asrat Mengiste –
who still invites Mennen to lead hand workshops in
East Africa. Mengiste himself now operates an air
service specialising in hand surgery to 11 countries.
The second occured at the end of one such
workshop in Moshi on the first slopes of Mount
Kilimanjaro, Mennen was presented with a gift and
with a sincere vote of thanks. In fact, the speaker told
the 25 surgeons attending from various different
countries that the workshop proved that Africans could
do these things for themselves, without the help and
advice of Europeans or Americans. Eveyone had
clapped. ‘As a white South African, this was the
greatest compliment I have ever received in my life,’
he said.
And once Mennen had been invited to speak at the
inaugural meeting of the Botswana Orthopaedic
Association. He flew to Gaborone to find the venue
packed with people. He asked who they all were
because they couldn’t all be surgeons. His hosts
laughed. ‘No, no, not all surgeons,’ they explained,
‘but nurses and GPs and physiotherapists and health
officials and interested members of the public’ – and
they had come from all over that huge country to hear
the expert from South Africa – the expert from
Medunsa – speak.
As he related this, it seemed to be from a position
characterised by some vague sense of loss, or a
wasting of opportunity perhaps.
‘The Medunsa heydays are over,’ was all he said.
But later, he added: ‘The opportunity for Medunsa – or
should I now say the University of Limpopo – to
assume a leadership role in Africa remains enormous.
It’s a matter of grabbing the opportunity and
harnessing the huge goodwill and enthusiasm that
exists on the continent. The University of Limpopo can
certainly become the ‘Medical Gateway’ to Africa.’
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