Esteemed rheumatologist and respected academic Professor Patrick Dessein has been recognised by the international online scholarly analytics platform ScholarGPS.

Prof Dessein, who practises at Netcare Rosebank Hospital, was recently recognised as one of the top 0.5% of ScholarGPS researchers worldwide based on his strong publication record, the impact of his work, and the notable quality of his scholarly contributions.

“We heartily congratulate Prof Dessein on this latest acknowledgement of his academic prowess and the immense body of work that is continually being referenced and built on by other academics internationally,” says Sibusiso Vilakazi, general manager of Netcare Rosebank Hospital.

Prof Dessein holds dual Honorary Professorship at the Internal Medicine and Physiology Departments of the University of the Witwatersrand. He moved to South Africa from Belgium in August 1983 and started working at Kalafong Hospital, Pretoria. 

In January 1988, he became a registrar in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Johannesburg Hospital (now Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital) and Hillbrow Hospital, where he was later a consultant physician internist for the Department of Rheumatology.

“Since 1986, my main interest has been in rheumatology research, particularly pathogenetic mechanisms, including sympathetic overactivity and instability and overlapping risk factors and pathogenetic mechanisms between rheumatic diseases and cardiovascular disease, with their implications for improved therapies of disease manifestations and disease outcomes as well as neuroendocrine deficiencies,” Prof Dessein explains.

He also practised at Netcare Milpark Hospital from 1995 to 2016. From 2016 to 2018, he served as Head of Rheumatology at the University Hospital and Free University in Brussels, Belgium, before returning to South Africa and Netcare Rosebank Hospital.

Over the past 12 years, Prof Dessein’s academic work has focused mostly on cardiovascular risk and atherogenesis, including molecular mechanisms such as altered endothelial activation and altered adipokine production and cardiac function and structure in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and chronic kidney disease.

“More recently, a new interest has been the identification of predictors of poor outcome and optimising interventions in socio-demographically disadvantaged patients seen in public care in South Africa,” Prof Dessein explains.

Prof Dessein has maintained strong international relationships, including as a member of the TransAltantic Cardiovascular Risk Calculator for Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium, which consists of 15 research groups in 10 countries dealing with combined data from 5 685 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. He has also served as an editorial board member of the Journal of Rheumatology and the Journal of Cardiology and Therapy.

In addition to consulting patients, Prof Dessein remains a leading hands-on figure in empowering local medical professionals by generously sharing his specialised knowledge. He also supervises numerous PhD students.

“On behalf of the Netcare family, we warmly applaud Prof Dessein for the extraordinary reach of his academic contributions and thank him for his dedication over decades to improving outcomes for patients, both those under his direct care at home in South Africa and the patients of the many healthcare practitioners internationally who have benefitted from his invaluable, wide-ranging research contributions,” Dr Erich Bock, managing director of Netcare’s hospital division, concludes.