Michael Gelfand

Who was Michael Gelfand?

Professor Michael Gelfand OBE, CBE, Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester, MD, FRCP, DPH, DMR, Hon. LLD, Hon. DLitt, was one of Rhodesia's/Zimbabwe's most distinguished medical practitioners, who received a Papal Order of the Knighthood of St. Sylvester.

Professor Gelfand was born in Wynberg, Cape Province, South Africa, in 1912, of immigrant Lithuanian parents, and he died on 12 July 1985, while attending a patient in the Avenues Clinic in Harare, Zimbabwe.

After qualifying in South Africa and working there and in England, in 1939 he joined the then-Southern Rhodesia Medical Service as Physician, Pathologist and Radiologist. He had married a Bulawayo girl, Esther Kollenberg, whom he had met at the University of Cape Town, and it was natural that, when their first child was due, they decided to join Esther's parents in Rhodesia. Once in government service he quickly gained a reputation by being the only doctor to diagnose correctly the illness of the wife of the Head of the Medical Services.

In 1962 he joined the then-University of Rhodesia as founding Professor of African Medicine.