Global Family Doctor

Regional President: WONCA Africa

Prof Bob Mash (South Africa)

Bob Mash is a family physician in South Africa. He spent most of his clinical career in Khayelitsha, a large Xhosa-speaking informal settlement on the edge of Cape Town. In 1997 the Western Cape created the first six posts for family physicians and Bob Mash was appointed in Khayelitsha and linked to Stellenbosch University. This led to the creation of the first 2-weeks of undergraduate clinical training for medical students in family medicine and now almost 30 years later our new curriculum has 4 years of continuous exposure to primary care and district health services on the distributed platform.

In 2007 the speciality of family medicine was recognised in South Africa and Bob Mash led the development of postgraduate training at Stellenbosch University that was also web-based to allow registrars to participate across the distributed rural and metro platforms. The Western Cape is the province with the largest number of family physicians in the country. Over the last 15 years he has developed into an established primary care researcher and leads the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care as a Distinguished Professor. His research interests include the contribution of family physicians to African health systems, family medicine education, improving primary care performance and community-orientated primary care, non-communicable diseases and behaviour change counselling, particularly for people with type 2 diabetes, and more recently climate change and primary health care.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine and a Past President of the South African Academy of Family Physicians. He is an honorary direct lifetime member of WONCA and convening the WONCA World Conference in Cape Town in 2027. He has also edited several books including the Handbook of Family Medicine, South African Family Practice Manual, How to do Primary Care Research (WONCA), and International Perspectives on Primary Care Research (WONCA). He is an international member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA) and has received awards from the South African Medical Association and South African Medical Research Council.