One hundred years of health

The Faculty of Health Sciences marks its centenary this year. To celebrate this milestone, Monday Paper we will be featuring faculty 'then and 'now' highlights from the past 100 years.

Then: The opening of the anatomical and physiological laboratories in Orange Street, Cape Town, on Thursday 6 June 1912, marked the founding of the South African College Medical School. At the time, the school boasted two staff members (Professors RB Thomson and William Jolly were appointed to the chairs of anatomy and physiology) and had enrolled 46 students (43 freshers and three second-year students) to its existing medical courses. The school would only introduce a full medical degree in 1922. Jolly served, from 1918 to 1931, as the faculty's first dean.

Now: Today the Faculty of Health Sciences has 11 academic departments, each comprising a number of clinical and non-clinical divisions or specialisations. In 2011 full-time academic, research and scientific/technical staff in the faculty totalled about 348, of which some 95 are professors and associate professors. There are also 173 part-time academic, research and scientific/technical staff, as well as large numbers of joint staff on Provincial Health conditions of service. The number of students in the faculty in 2011 was 3 641. Today, the faculty offers undergraduate degree programmes in medicine, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and communication sciences, and a large number of postgraduate degrees at diploma, honours, master's and doctoral levels (including medical specialisations). Professor Marian Jacobs, appointed in 2006, is the faculty's 11th dean.