Clive Rosendorff MBBCh, MD, PhD, DScMed

Clive Rosendorff is an internationally renowned cardiologist, known particularly for his pioneering work on the control of blood vessels by the sympathetic nervous system, and for studies on the pharmacology and therapeutic use of drugs for the treatment of hypertension, heart failure, and coronary artery disease. Over his career his research has investigated hypertension, vascular biology, cardiovascular pharmacology, coronary blood flow, cerebral circulation, and geriatric cardiology, much of which significantly changed the way these topics were understood, resulting in much-improved disease management outcomes for patients.

Clive entered Wits medical school in 1955, aged seventeen years. He completed BSc (Honours) in Experimental Physiology in 1958 (with Laurence Geffen and Martin Bobrow) and graduated MB BCh in 1962.

During his medical student days, he was prominent in University anti-apartheid activities. Those were the years of deepest apartheid, and the student body at Wits, especially the medical students, were at the forefront of student efforts to safeguard academic freedom and to desegregate the teaching hospitals. Some even sacrificed their own freedom in the wider struggle against apartheid.

Clive Rosendorff was Chair of the Academic Freedom Committee; a member of the National Executive of the National Union of South African Students (1957); President of the Association of Medical Students of South Africa (1959); and President of the SRC (1960-61).