David Thomson is a consultant surgeon in the Transplant Unit and a subspecialist in the Critical Care Department at Groote Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town. He completed his undergraduate training in 2002 at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and went on to specialise in surgery at the University of Cape Town completing his FCS(SA) in 2011 and MMed(Surgery) in 2012.

Awarded the Garron Caine Travelling Fellowship he attended the Harvard Centre for Surgery and Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2014. 

He completed his sub-specialist qualification in Critical Care in 2015 and currently is the head of the Transplant Centre of Excellence at Groote Schuur Hospital while still working in the ICU, directing the ECMO program and assisting in kidney and liver transplantation. 

David has an interest in medical education and promoting organ donation and transplantation creating the massive open online course Organ Donation: From Death to Life hosted on Coursera.org and running ECMO training workshops nationally. He currently sits on both the Transplantation Society and the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement Councils as the regional representative from Africa.