Jake Krige with his wife, Marj, at the UCT Faculty of Health Sciences Autumn Graduation Ceremony.
Image: supplied
A senior MD doctorate in surgery was awarded to Emeritus Professor Jake Krige at the University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences Autumn Graduation Ceremony last month.
His thesis involved novel clinical research which provided solutions for the treatment of patients with liver cirrhosis who experience life-threatening gastrointestinal bleeding.
Professor Krige is the previous Head of Surgical Gastroenterology and Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital, Editor Emeritus of the South African Journal of Surgery and past president of the South African Gastroenterology Society. He is currently Honorary Senior Professorial Researcher in Surgical Gastroenterology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital.
A recipient of the South African College of Medicine Douglas gold medal for Surgery and an awardee of the British Moynihan surgical medal, Professor Krige received the prestigious University of Cape Town Distinguished Teacher Award in 2002.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the College of Surgeons of South Africa. In 2020 he received the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Award and medal in recognition of exceptional achievements in surgical research, teaching, skills training, academic leadership and patient care.
Professor Krige’s Masters MSc thesis established the international benchmark for the endoscopic treatment of life-threatening bleeding from veins in the gullet while his PhD doctoral thesis and publications on complex pancreatic trauma established the Cape Town surgical unit as the leading centre globally and acknowledged his status as the world leader in the surgical treatment of serious pancreatic injuries.
During his career, Professor Krige has been an invited speaker at surgical symposia and international meetings on every continent, he has delivered a raft of eponymous invited lectures and has a prodigious research and academic output.
An inspiration and a role model for younger surgeons, he has taught over 5 000 medical students, 150 specialist surgical trainees and more than 40 international postgraduate surgical fellows from across the globe who had come to Cape Town for training in advanced endoscopic and surgical skills.