The Order of the Baobab in Silver

Stuart Saunders Awarded for:

Medical research and outstanding contribution to university education.

Profile of Stuart Saunders

Stuart Saunders qualified in medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1953 and did post-graduate work at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith in London and at Harvard University in Boston. He headed the department of medicine at UCT from 1971 to 1980, where he founded the Liver Research Group and published numerous scientific articles in this regard.

As vice-Chancellor of UCT from 1981 to 1996, Saunders administered an unprecedented increase in the enrollment of black students.

He also served in the National Working Group established by the Minister of Education to look at the structure of higher education.

Today, he is a consultant physician at Groote Schuur Hospital and a specialist in liver disease