Reflections on surgical leadership

I would like to thank the president of the SRS and the committee for inviting me to present the annual DJ du Plessis lecture. It remains a great honour and is undoubtedly one of the highlights of a career in South African academic surgery. I have entitled my lecture "Reflections on surgical leadership". I would like to remind us all about DJ du Plessis. As time progresses the number of people in the audience who actually knew the man grows fewer and memories dim. Fortunately, there are many fine anecdotes and character sketches of Professor du Plessis which have been recorded in journals and history books. He took over a relatively new department at Wits, in 1958, which had just become embroiled in a rather unpleasant academic scandal.