Management, members and invited members
ExCo
ExCo
Executive committee (ExCo) members working for a transplant organization as doctors hold a unique and critical role. These professionals combine their medical expertise with strategic leadership to advance the mission of saving and improving lives through organ transplantation. They oversee clinical operations, ensure the highest standards of patient care, and implement innovative medical practices. Their responsibilities also include fostering collaborations with hospitals, researchers, and policymakers to enhance transplant outcomes and advocate for ethical practices in organ donation. As both clinicians and leaders, ExCo members balance patient care with the broader organizational goals, driving advancements in transplant medicine and shaping the future of healthcare.
About Prof Mignon McCulloch
PROF MIGNON MCCULLOCH
MBBCH DCH DTM&H FRCPCH FCP(Paeds)
Full Professor & Head of Clinical Unit of Paediatric Nephrology and Solid Organ Transplantation (including kidney, liver, and heart) at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town. She is also the immediate Past president of the International Paediatric Transplantation Society (IPTA) involved in promoting paediatric transplantation worldwide. Also, immediate Past-President of the South African Paediatric Association (SAPA) dealing specifically with COVID issues in the last 2 years as an important advocacy voice for children She is also a Paediatric Intensive Care (PICU) consultant and on the Saving Young Lives (SYL) Steering Committee. Her other interests include Paediatric Nephrology and care of critically ill children specifically with AKI requiring all forms of Dialysis and Transplant in infants and children. This includes doing training Fellows and outreach work in various parts of Africa developing paediatric renal and transplant programs as well as Adolescent transition programs.
Wacky Fact: She is also an amateur surfer
About Dr David Thomson
David Thomson is a transplant surgeon and critical care specialist at Groote Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town. He completed his undergraduate training in 2002 at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and went on to specialise in surgery at the University of Cape Town completing his FCS(SA) in 2011 and MMed(Surgery) in 2012 and Critical Care in 2015. He currently works as a critical care subspecialist and as a surgeon in the liver and renal transplantation unit, leading the ECMO program.
His interests are medical education and system improvement. He created the massive open online course Organ Donation: From Death to Life hosted on Coursera.org to improve education around organ donation and transplantation. He is a past President of the Southern African Transplantation Society and led development on a report on Organ and Tissue Donation in South Africa: Creating a National Strategic Roadmap in collaboration with the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement. He worked on the World Brain Death Project and is the lead author on the South African Guidelines for Determination of Death published in 2021.
Wacky fact: Enjoys basketball and chess. Known to play online poker seriously.
Dr Francisca van der Schyff
Dr Francisca van der Schyff trained at the University of Cape Town to obtain her medical degree, with honors, in 2006.
She obtained her specialist qualification as a general surgeon in 2016, cum laude.
She spent an additional 2 years in the department of Paediatric surgery at the University of Pretoria before accepting a training post in transplantation at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical center.
She has since qualified as an abdominal transplant surgeon and is currently working as a full-time consultant within the transplant team at the Donald Gordon Medical Center. She has previously published on biliary atresia and necrotizing enterocolitis in children and her current field of research include graft tolerance in children post liver transplant. She currently serves as a member of the Vanguard committee of the European Society of Organ Transplantation and President elect of the South African Transplant Society.
Wacky fact: I married my childhood sweetheart!
About Mande Toubkin
Employer: Netcare Limited
Position: National Emergency Trauma, Transplant, Disaster Management and Corporate Social Investment Manager, Netcare
Qualifications: Dip General Nursing, Dip Midwifery (Honors), Dip Paediatric Nursing Science (Honors), Trauma Nursing (Honors), Hospital Nursing Management, Aviation Health Care Providers, FSA Interaction Management, Dip Medical and Surgical Nursing Trauma (Honors), Dip Medical and Surgical Nursing Critical Care (Honors) MSC Master of Science in Medicine (Emergency Medicine), fEMSSA, fANSA, Graduate Stanford University Compassion Ambassador, advisor on ministerial disaster management committee.
Other positions: Director and Secretary of the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa, Director Netcare Foundation.
Publications: Disaster Travel Medicine: The South African Rescue mission abroad, Guideline for the assessment of Tauma Centers in South Africa (SAMJ 2011), Transplant Clinical Governance Manual (HQS), Characteristics and outcomes of hospitalized patients in South Africa during the COVID-19 omicron wave compared with previous waves (JAMA 2021),
Current responsibilities: Overall day-to-day management of Netcare Emergency, Trauma Transplant, Corporate Social Investment and Disaster Management Director of the Netcare Foundation NPO PBO.
About Fiona McCurdie
Fiona is a Living Donor Transplant Co-ordinator at Groote Schuur Hospital
Members
Members and CO-Opted Members
Executive committee (ExCo) members working for a transplant organization as doctors hold a unique and critical role. These professionals combine their medical expertise with strategic leadership to advance the mission of saving and improving lives through organ transplantation. They oversee clinical operations, ensure the highest standards of patient care, and implement innovative medical practices. Their responsibilities also include fostering collaborations with hospitals, researchers, and policymakers to enhance transplant outcomes and advocate for ethical practices in organ donation. As both clinicians and leaders, ExCo members balance patient care with the broader organizational goals, driving advancements in transplant medicine and shaping the future of healthcare.
About Dr Zunaid Barday
Dr Zunaid Barday qualified (MBChB) at the University of Cape Town in 1993. He trained as a physician and then a nephrologist at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, where he continues to work. He runs the Renal Transplant Clinic and is involved in all aspects of living kidney donor assessment and post-transplant care of kidney transplant recipients. More recently he has been involved starting the first ABO incompatible kidney transplant programme in South Africa. He also looks after renal failure patients at the UCT and Athlone Kidney and Dialysis Centres. Research interests include desensitization and immunosuppression protocols as well as HIV positive kidney transplantation.
Wacky fact – loves teasing Fiona and “Dad Jokes”, preferably at the same time!
About Anja Meyer
I see myself as a professional, well-presented, articulate individual with well-developed communication and interaction skills and definite commitment to my career. My strengths include positivity, ambition, leadership, analytical abilities, practicality, a hands-on outlook, attention to detail, researcher, and love to interact with people at all levels. I am currently the chairperson of the South Africa Transplant Coordinators Society. I am a people`s person with a passion for transplant. I live by the principle: Ubuntu- “I am, because of you”
Qualifications
General Nurse Passed (Passed with Honors), 2007
Post Basic elementary certificate in Critical Care Nursing 2008, (Passed with cum laude)
Post basic Diploma in Critical Care Nursing Science passed in 2009
University of Johannesburg: B. Cur et Admin Full-time, • Nursing Administration • Nursing Education • Post-Basic Occupational health nursing science • 2015
University of Johannesburg – M cur June 2022 in Ethos and Professionalism
Topic: Experiences of professional nurses providing care to potential organ donors at a public institution in Gauteng
Wacky Fact: Love to watch Cartoons and Marvel movies
About Lliam Brannigan
Wacky fact: My name is spelt with two LL’s because my late dad, so thrilled that he had a little boy, got piddled with his mates and spelt my name incorrectly on the application. Hence the very rare LLIAM
About Mbali Misimeki
A SACSSP registered social worker, experienced in the provision of comprehensive social work services at a micro, mezzo, and macro levels of intervention within the public and private sector. Her field experience includes statutory work, generalist social work practice, academic tutoring, occupational social work, and medical/health social work, with special interest in transplantation, palliation, psychosocial wellbeing, and disease management. Furthermore, she is a South African One Young World ambassador, a Young African Leaders Initiative Network member, and a published author. “I value diversity, human dignity, and I believe in the empowerment and liberation of people”. Mbali is an advocate for social change, development, and social cohesion.
Wacky Fact: Trained former radio presenter (Joyous Radio).
About Dr Priya Walabh
I am the clinical head of paediatric gastroenterology/hepatology at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital since establishing the unit in 2015. I completed my speciality and subspeciality training at Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town in 2011. My passion is paediatric liver transplantation, with my primary focus being to address disparities in transplantation and organ allocation and the impact of social determinants of health thus aiming to make the “gift of life” equally accessible to all South Africans. I also have a special interest in infectious diseases associated with liver transplantation and am a committee member of the Special Interest Group (SIG): Infectious disease and transplantation in the International Liver Transplant Society (ILTS).
Wacky Fact: Hot yoga, swimming and tarot cards are my mind-body detox methods especially during the chaotic planetary retrogrades and eclipse seasons
