Salome Maswime

Salome Maswime is the Head of School of Clinical Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a clinician-scientist, a global health expert, and a pioneer in academic global surgery. She is an obstetrician and gynaecologist and the inaugural Head of Global Surgery at the University of Cape Town. She advocates for women's health rights, equity in surgical and maternal care, and providing adequate health services to remote and underserved populations. She advises and consults for many institutions, including the World Health Organization. In 2017, she was honored with the Trailblazer and Young Achiever Award. She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She is the former head of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Integrated Clinical Care. She serves as the vice-chairperson of the Health Professions Council of South Medical and Dental Professions Board and a council member. Her qualifications include, an MBChB at UKZN, FCOG(SA), MMED and PhD in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Wits University, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She has a Certificate in Higher Education Teaching from Harvard University, and a Certificate in Leading Organizations and Change from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Salome has worked in several hospitals in South Africa as a medical doctor and specialist.

Early life and education Salome Maswime is from Limpopo. Her father was a theology professor at the University of Venda. During her medical internship, she saw two mothers die in a maternity ward in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal. This experience inspired her to train as a specialist obstetrician and gynecologist, as she feared she would "remain part of the problem that was leading to many preventable and unjust maternal deaths." She is a member of the International Network of Obstetric Survey Systems. She works with women with high risk pregnancies. Her research considers maternal near miss and mortality. She found that maternal deaths from bleeding during caesarean sections have increased in South Africa. She compared the preparedness of hospitals for surgical complications in caesarean sections in southern Gauteng. She has written for The Conversation about increasing the number of caesarean sections in Africa. She won the Trailblazer and Young Achiever Award from Jacob Zuma in 2017.

In 2018, she launched the South African Clinician Scientists Society, a collegial group for emerging specialists and researchers returning from training abroad that facilitates mentorship, networking, and multidisciplinary research. She was awarded a Discovery Foundation Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital Fellowship in 2018. Her fellowship allows her to research the causes of stillbirths in HIV-positive people. The fellowship is worth R2.1 million.

Salome is a member of the College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Council in the College of Medicine South Africa. She is the Chairperson of the South African, and the SADC Safe Surgical Care Technical Experts Working Group, and a member of the United Nations Core Stillbirths Estimates Group. She is the past Chair of the Health Systems Trust Board and previously served as their Interim CEO. She is the Vice-Chair of the Lifebox Board. She is a Member of the Academy of Scientist and a Y-rated Scientist with the National Research Foundation. She received the International Healthcare Practitioner award from Zenith Global Health in the UK in 2025.

Since 2026, she has been the Head of School of Clinical Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand.