Farai Madzimbamuto
Doctor Farai Daniel Madzimbamuto is a Zimbabwean who is an associate professor and head of the department of anaesthetics and critical care at the faculty of medicine at the University of Botswana. He was an anaesthesiologist in the Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine and Chair of the Department of Health Professions Education at the University of Zimbabwe. Farai is the Zimbabwe National Co-ordinator of the African Surgical Outcomes Study. He is also the anaesthesia representative on the National Maternal Deaths and Stillbirths Review Committee for Zimbabwe.[1]
Background
Dr Madzimbamuto was born in Zimbabwe in 1956. His father was the late national hero, Daniel Madzimbamuto, while his mother was Mrs Stella Madzimbamuto (nee Nkolombe) from South Africa.
Career
Following on his MBChB (1985), in the days of Senior House officer rotations, he ended up in the Department of Anaesthesia, in 1988. The MMed programme in the department had recently started, and as measured by pass rate of the MMeds on the UK Fellowship, it was doing very well. The training included a rotation in Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent, in the UK. After his MMed (1991) he joined the department as lecturer (1993) and have been joined to it since in various degrees of elasticity. Currently he is Chair of the Department of Health Professions Education (HPE), but also still in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine (ACCM). He has worked in UK and in Botswana, in clinical service and in training / teaching, so he has more than one window to look through. He took a fork in the road when he did the SAFRI (Southern Africa FAIMER Regional Institute) programme (2010). He will be writing a regular piece in the Bulletin of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.[2]
Teaching has always been at the heart of his interests. He remembers the best teachers (and worst) he ever had, even at primary school. How to make the education experience of students and staff cut the same deep farrow today, that’s what they are about in HPE. The department was new (2014), which in a way reflected the desire and effort the UZ had to keep moving. They run Faculty Development Workshops and started an annual health educationist’s conference, to promote scholarship in the teaching and training of health professionals. They are also working on the MBChB curriculum review project of the College of Health Science. Much of his work is related to education, whether as part of the College of Anaesthetists of East Central and Southern Africa [CANECSA], where he is Chair of the Education Committee or the Zimbabwe Anaesthetic Association [ZAA] where he is on the Education Committee.
Court Case
In terms of the Immigration Act, anyone who was born in Zimbabwe, but later acquired a foreign passport is treated like an alien and they should periodically apply for a renewable permit to guarantee stay in the country. But the new Constitution that was promulgated last year recognises such people as truly Zimbabwean citizens who have the same rights with the other citizens.
In the judgment delivered in favour of medical practitioner and University of Zimbabwe lecturer Dr Farai Madzimbamuto, who is a holder of both South African and Zimbabwean passports, Justice Vernanda Ziyambi said it was up to the legislature to align the laws in conformity with the supreme law of the country. The court also declared Dr Madzimbamuto a citizen of Zimbabwe and ordered the Department of Immigration to endorse his passport that he had unrestricted right to stay in the country. The late former Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku and seven other judges of the Constitutional Court agreed with the judgment written by Justice Ziyambi.[3]
