Dr Simone Zoepke, General practitioner
Simone is a born bred “Kloofie”.
She attended school at the local public Kloof schools, starting at Kloof Pre-primary to her matriculation from Kloof High School in 2010. She then decided to travel and work for a year before completing her studies in medicine at the University of Pretoria in 2012. She completed her internship at the Pietermaritzburg Hospital Complex, rotating through Edendale, Northdale and Greys Hospital. She then made the trek to the Free State where she did her Community Service year at Phekolong District Hospital in Bethlehem. She then made the much-anticipated journey back home to Kloof, where she practiced as a GP in women’s health for two years before moving to the Hillcrest Surgical Unit and the Hillcrest Mediclinic. She has developed and nurtured a keen interest in Plastics and Reconstructive surgery, Emergency Care and Orthopaedic surgery. This passion was ignited when she was taught about the anatomy and unfathomable complexities of the hand.
During her undergraduate studies, Simone was awarded a scholarship to Tromso in Norway where she learnt under the wing of the ambitious and talented Dr Louis de Weerd in the Plastic Surgery department. She then went on to write a medical paper with him on the use of muscle flaps in reconstruction. This was in addition to the paper she wrote with Dr Nikki Allorto in the field of Burn Surgery. She intends to start her masters in medicine in 2024 with a focus on research. She has always had a passion for writing and teaching and finds pleasure in imparting her knowledge and experience onto others. She now hopes to share her knowledge with the Kloof community through Public Health and be a filter for the technical and sometimes overwhelming amounts of information available to those looking for answers about their bodies and health.
Dr Shaun Martin, General practitioner
Shaun Martin grew up in Westville and attended Westville Boys’ High School before training as a medical doctor at Wits University. After qualifying he worked at Baragwanath Hospital first as an Intern and then in the Anaesthetics department where he attained a Diploma in Anaesthesia. He did a further 18 months in Lincoln, UK as a Staff grade in Anaesthetics before returning to South Africa. He has been a GP in The Upper Highway since 1994 with regular return visits initially to the UK for Anaesthetic locums and more recently to Ireland as a GP locum.
His particular fields of interest include care of the elderly, Addiction Medicine, Urgent care and Procedural Sedation. He is a director at Hillcrest Surgical Unit and Careline Crisis and Halfway House, and a GP at Medicross Hillcrest and Le Domaine Health.
Dr Tamzyn Green, General practitioner
Tamzyn is a general practitioner who grew up in Pietermaritzburg and matriculated in 1996 from Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School with 7 distinctions. She went to study medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand where she qualified in 2002. She has always loved KwaZulu-Natal and was fortunate enough to be placed at the Greys/Edendale/Northdale Complex in PMB for her Internship, and at Addington hospital for my Community Service. She was delighted to spend her whole community service year in Pediatrics, with future plans to become a pediatrician. During this year, she studied for and completed her Diploma in Pediatrics.
The following year, she moved to Worcester and worked in a Pediatric HIV and TB clinic at Eben Donges Hospital. Life, however, took her in a completely different direction and she started working as a GP in Johannesburg, then Dullstroom, and eventually back in her happy place in KwaZulu-Natal, where she plans to stay indefinitely.
Tamzyn now works at Hillcrest Surgical Unit as a GP, as well as doing some after hour work and sedations for Gastroscopies and Colonoscopies there. She also does some work at a couple of retirement villages in the Hillcrest area.