Litnet

Rust Theron obtained his MBChB degree in 1988 and his MMed degree (cum laude) in 1995, both from the University of Stellenbosch. He started his private practice in 1996 at Mediclinic Durbanville and has been working there ever since. Medicine is his biggest passion in life – he always says that the morning he gets up and it feels like work to go to work, he will know that it is time to stop!

Besides loving sport, reading and gardening, his other main passion is to work with students. This was the motivation behind the project which he initiated in 2013 with the medical faculty of the University of Stellenbosch: Students in their 4th or 5th year of medical studies doing their mid-clinical rotation in internal medicine, rotate for one month in a private hospital. The project was done as a trial in 2014 when four students per rotation came to Durbanville Mediclinic and worked one on one with a physician. This was such a huge success that the project was extended to Louis Leipoldt, Cape Gate and Panorama Mediclinic as well. This inspired him to do an MPhil degree in health professions education, which he completed in December 2018. A total of 18 students per rotation and 10 rotations per year were done until COVID-19 changed everything. Currently he is one of a few private doctors that help with the online teaching of students in their mid-clinic rotation.

He makes time to stay on top of current trends and regularly does talks for GPs and his peers. Currently he is doing a biweekly lunch chat via Zoom in collaboration with De Nova Medica with GPs across South Africa as well as a weekly chat on a local radio station on a Thursday morning on Covid-related issues.

He has three children, aged 29, 27 and 26. His oldest son works as a medical officer in surgery at Karl Bremer Hospital, the second son as a medical officer in neurology at the Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban, and his youngest, a daughter, is a second-year medical intern at the Livingstone and Dora Nginza Hospitals in Port Elizabeth. 

Rust is the head of the Covid team at Mediclinic Durbanville and he and the rest of the team have had very good results with their treatment regimes. They have submitted their results and treatment protocol for publication and are awaiting final approval. 

One of his biggest achievements for 2020, he says, is certainly the fact that he became a grandfather to a baby boy who also carries his name. The second season of his television programme Gesondheid prontuit also aired on VIA channel 147 and they are in the planning phase for season 3.