Episode 31: Hepatology/Internal Medicine - Professor Mark Sonderup

Welcome to episode 31! In this week’s coffee with consultants feature, we break new ground by featuring our first interview with a consultant from the Western Cape! Thanks to the nomination of their intern curator by a number of the Groote Schuur interns, I had the immense privilege and honour of interviewing hepatologist Professor Mark Sonderup at the Liver Clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital.  Professor Mark Sonderup is an internal medicine physician and specialist Hepatologist at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH). He has research interests in the treatment of chronic and acute liver diseases, including HIV, viral hepatitis and drug-induce liver injuries. We discussed his journey into and through medicine, including his pharmacy degree which he completed prior to entering medicine at UCT, his internship experiences, and what led to him choosing to specialise in internal medicine, with the experience of becoming a registrar at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa, as well as some of the interesting factors around that time such as the HIV-denialism that had wide-reaching implications for patients and the public health system. In the latter half of this episode, we also discussed his role mentoring, monitoring and guiding interns and medical students, and some of the observations he has made from this and what advice he has for junior doctors. If you’re someone who has been grappling with indecision, or experienced self-doubt in your journey to becoming and being a doctor, you’ll definitely want to stick around for that because it is seriously rich and wise insight and advice to digest and take to heart. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I’m sure you will as well. For more information about anything we discussed in this episode, or to share your thoughts on it, send an email to [email protected].