A renowned paediatric pulmonologist, the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Professor Refiloe Masekela, has been named this year’s recipient of the World Lung Health Award, to be presented in the US in May.
Limpopo-born Masekela – who goes by @Bronchigirl on her social platforms – is the academic head of paediatrics and child health at the university and president of the SA Thoracic Society, and was notified last week that she would be receiving the American Thoracic Society (ATS) World Lung Health Award.
“I’m overwhelmed…when a colleague wanted to nominate me, I thought it was a long shot because there are so many people doing fantastic work around the world,” she told News24.
“I’m really honoured and humbled.”
The award is given annually to a global citizen doing impactful work in world health outside the US. Previous recipients hail from the UK, France and India, among others.
South Africa has had two past winners, Heather Zar of UCT in 2014 and Eric Batemen in 2018.
Masekela has spent almost two decades specialising in chronic lung health diseases like asthma in children, and was instrumental in establishing the first paediatric HIV clinic at the University of Pretoria.
She received her PhD in 2013, and was also South Africa’s first black woman pulmonologist when she wrote the first set of pulmonology exams in 2007.
This was at a time when pulmonology was still in its infancy in the country, she said.
“When I qualified as a paediatrician, I was actually inspired by one of my colleagues, who encouraged me to go into the field. There were not even 15 pulmonologists in South Africa at that time, which encouraged me to specialise.”
Her research and clinical work now include collaboration with other African countries, which she fostered as president of the Pan African Thoracic Society, where she is also a mentor.
Fundraising and passion
Masekela, now 50, said she has had the time of her life building her career. She qualified through Wits and enjoyed a fellowship in pulmonology in Belgium in her early years.
Today, she holds many other high-profile positions too, including National Institute for Health and Care Research Global Health Research Professor (2022 to 2027), co-chairperson of the Global Asthma Network and co-chairperson of the Federation of Respiratory Societies Lung Health Task Force Steering Committee.
In May, she will fly to San Francisco to accept her award at the ATS International Conference, something she describes as a career-high.
While fundraising may be the greatest challenge of her job, she also receives great joy in mentoring people and watching them become successful.
“Passion goes a long way, and if you focus on the number of hours or the sacrifice involved, you could see it as a negative… but passion gets you really far. It also helps you to do things that are sometimes beyond your everyday duties, but those are what matters in the end.
“It’s all the teaching, the mentoring, all the other bits that are not part of my everyday job, that can sometimes be much more fulfilling and make getting up every day easy.”
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