Team UKZN at the ASSA conference. Women Academics Represent UKZN at National Anatomy Conference
Adjudicators were impressed by 23 presentations delivered by women academics and postgraduate students from UKZN’s Discipline of Clinical Anatomy, scooping three distinguished awards at the 43rd Annual Conference for the Anatomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA) held recently in Parys, Free State.
Flying the UKZN flag high were Clinical Anatomy staff Mrs Brenda De Gama, Mrs Lelika Lazarus, Ms Pamela Pillay, together with Masters and PhD students Ms Sundika Ishwarkumar, Ms Arishka Kalicharan, Ms Nerissa Naidoo, Ms Bianca Roelofse, Ms Nosipho Shange, Ms Chantel Sookoo and Ms Cassandra Sibande-Clarke.
The conference was hosted by the Sefako Makatho Health Science University with UKZN delivering 14 oral and nine poster presentations – the highest number of presentations seen from a single institution at the conference.
De Gama was elected as a new council member on the ASSA committee to which Pillay already serves as a council member. They received first and second runner-up Hanno Boon Awards in the Best Medical Education category respectively at the conference.
De Gama’s presentation was on the attitudes of Black South African health science students at UKZN towards body donation while Pillay presented a fetal study on the anatomy of the Adductor Pollicis Muscle, and another on South Africa’s legal requirements for the acquisition of cadavers for teaching and research.
Sibande-Clarke was second runner-up for the Antoinette Cotze Award as the best first time presenter. She presented an anatomical description of the position and relations of the greater palatine foramen in unidentified South African dry human skulls.
Ishwarkumar conducted a morphometric analysis of the mandible in the Indian population of the greater Durban Metropolitan region and also presented her study focused on the prevalence of third molars on a similar population. Another study was presented by Jughoo who spoke about the tensile strength of the Achilles tendon compared to age and sex.
It was Naidoo who presented on variant branching patterns of the internal iliac artery and again on the relevance of the proximal rectal arterial supply to Hartmann’s Procedure in addition to a third study - a morphometric analysis of the sciatic nerve; particularly its implications for regional anaesthesia.
Lazarus spoke about arterial supply of the oesophagus in foetuses and another study entitled, "Autoethanography: An evolving methodological praxis in anatomical education", whereas Shange reported on two cased documenting the prevalence of the preaortic interazygos vein in the fetus and then an anatomical study of the relationship between the sympathetic trunk and intercostal veins in the upper four intercostal spaces.
Kalicharan’s presentation shed light on the morphology and morphometry of the femur in a KwaZulu-Natal population while Govender’s was an anatomical investigation of the branches of the external carotid arteries in Fetuses, and Roelofse’s focused on the anatomical variations of the vascular supply of the suprarenal gland in human foetuses.
Positive feedback was received from fellow ASSA colleagues based on the quality of research output produced by UKZN. They said they were impressed by the Anatomy Discipline’s research trust and the high calibre of research.
Team UKZN said they enjoyed outdoor activities at with fellow delegates at the conference that included abseiling, quad-bike game drive, a game drive, archery, paintball and lion feeding.
Lunga Memela