Hospital welcomes specialist
Life Queenstown Private Hospital welcomes nephrologist Dr Sibulele Mazwi to its team of specialists.
Mazwi, who was born and raised in Engcobo, runs his private practice at 43 Prince Alfred Street.
A family man with four children, he still feels deeply connected to his rural roots.
He completed his undergraduate studies in medicine at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha and finished his medical training in 2011. He then spent two years working as an intern at Helen Joseph Hospital and did his community service at Andries Vosloo Provincial Hospital.
During this time, his interest in internal medicine began to grow.
He then applied to be part of the internal medicine department at Frontier Hospital, where he wrote his primary exams.
After working at Frontier for a year, he moved back to Johannesburg to pursue his specialist training at Helen Joseph.
During this time, he had to rotate through the Wits circuit of academic hospitals, which included Chris Hani Baragwanath and Charlotte Maxeke.
“Upon completion of my speciality as a physician, I had a short stint as a general physician of six months at Charlotte Maxeke, at the end of which I started my nephrology training.
“I completed my two years of training in nephrology in December 2023,” he said.
Mazwi’s practice offers general physician specialist care, which includes investigating and managing complex medical conditions. He treats both outpatients and inpatients.
Outpatients are typically referred by general practitioners for complex medical conditions that require specialist care. Inpatients may have been admitted to the hospital due to their condition.
“We also see patients in need of surgical intervention; these are mostly on an inpatient basis for preoperative to ensure there are no compromising conditions before they go to surgery.”
With his critical care experience, he will be looking after ICU patients as well. Along with his team, he will attend to both dialysisrequiring and non-dialysis-requiring chronic kidney disease patients.
This includes patients who have got glomerulonephritis, which is an auto immune disease of the kidney.
“This is a great interest of mine. Chronic kidney disease is a big spectrum, from patients who a have multi dysfunction in their kidney that may be reversible, to patients who have got long-standing nonreversible kidney disease, at which point one would be preventing them from progressing to a dialysis requiring stage,” he said.