Why Did I Become A Doctor South Africa

He walked into medical school. Two weeks later, he walked out. What followed was a career that would shape South African law for decades — from drafting the Competition Act to chairing the Davis Tax Committee, from a TV show he did entirely for free to a bench appointment he didn't even want.

Judge Dennis Davis grew up in a working-class Jewish family in Cape Town — his father a motor mechanic, his mother a legal secretary. He was a first-generation university student who finished second in his law class, got no bursaries because he was too outspoken, and spent nearly two years at Old Mutual doing estate planning for wealthy clients just to save enough money to study overseas. None of it was planned. Almost all of it was accidental.

In this episode, Judge Davis speaks candidly about what it actually felt like to sit on the bench for over two decades — the exhaustion, the under-resourcing, the weight of custody cases, and the salary that senior counsel earn five to ten times over. He talks about being "bulldozed" onto the bench by Chief Justice Ismail Mahomed, applying once for the Constitutional Court and not getting it, and why he jokes that the interviews were simply too long. He reflects on growing up under apartheid, the parallel he drew as a 12-year-old between the Holocaust and what he witnessed on the streets of Cape Town, and how that moment set the course of everything that followed.

He also shares why, in 2026, he is no longer certain that constitutional democracy in South Africa is here to stay — and why he still wouldn't leave.

Hosted by Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, legal, financial, or career decisions.
🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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Dr André Hugo has been practising as a specialist orthodontist for 42 years. He grew up in Krugersdorp as the son of a dentist — and very nearly became a plastic surgeon, until he watched his uncle operate and fainted. He is also a pilot — he learnt to fly gliders as a dental student at Wits, went on to hold an instrument rating for 25 years, owned several aircraft including a Cessna Centurion, and for years flew his family across borders to Lake Kariba and Bazaruto Island. He is also the man whose practice's transformation from analogue to digital became a teaching case at the UCT Business School.

At 74, he is still practising, still fascinated by new technology, and firmly of the view that retirement is a dirty word — though a stent and a brutal course of statins last year have complicated that position somewhat.

In this conversation, Yash and Yak speak with someone who has watched orthodontics evolve from hand-bent wires and plaster casts to AI-driven treatment planning and direct resin printing — and who has strong, considered views on all of it.

Topics covered: growing up in Krugersdorp as the son of a dentist; a plastic surgeon uncle who inspired him until he fainted; why his father steered him away from prosthodontics; gliding at Magaliesburg, an instrument rating, and international clearances; the stent, the statins, and rethinking invincibility; delegation as the key to scaling a practice; how his nephew Chris Kerr-Peterson dragged him from analogue to digital; a practice transformation that became a UCT Business School teaching case; online booking and the evolution of informed consent; aligners vs braces and the limitations nobody advertises; direct resin printing; AI in orthodontics; why he never considered emigrating; the Kruger elephant problem; and succession planning, retirement, and barefoot walks on the beach.

Co-hosted by Dr Yakshen Lindy | Recorded 23 May 2026

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.
🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.
💬 Enjoyed the episode?
Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.
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This episode of Why Did I Become a Doctor South Africa is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief — South Africa's leading daily healthcare news service. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1

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At 19, Luvaan Rooyan is the youngest guest we've ever had on the show, and his road to dental school is unlike any we've heard.

A week before his mid-year matric exams, Luvaan was in a serious car accident. He describes breaking his spine, fracturing his dominant hand and suffering a severe concussion, then spending a week in ICU and two months in recovery, unsure at first whether he would walk normally again. He missed those exams entirely, and what followed was a slow, stubborn comeback: relearning how to study with a healing brain, a maths test he says he opened and went completely blank on, and a matric he salvaged one fifteen-minute study window at a time.

He'd set his heart on dentistry but didn't get in at first. With an engineering place secured and an apartment already sorted, he was days from starting a different degree when an early-morning email arrived asking if he still wanted a dental seat. He replied within minutes, and by the time he'd stepped out of the shower, the switch was done.

In this episode, Luvaan sits down with Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy to talk about growing up in Midrand, why his mother pushed him towards a public boys' school, what it's really like inside a University of Pretoria dental class, and why he wants to specialise in paediatric dentistry, particularly for children with special needs, precisely because so few people do. Along the way: a frank, friendly disagreement about single-sex schooling, a Gen Z take on content and attention, and the Porsche that may or may not be waiting at the end of it all.

It's an honest look at how someone this early in the journey thinks about pressure, failure, gratitude and the kind of dentist he hopes to become.

Guest: Luvaan Rooyan, second-year dental student, University of Pretoria
Hosts: Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy

New episodes every second Sunday.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.
🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.
💬 Enjoyed the episode?
Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.
🔗 Connect with us:
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🚀 Want to collaborate, support the show, or find out more?
Visit whydidibecomeadoctor.com or email us at info@whydidibecomeadoctor.com.

This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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Dr Ninakhulu Ntsanwisi is a medical doctor and admitted attorney who now runs her own consultancy in the medico-legal space, helping doctors and healthcare facilities identify and mitigate risk before it turns into litigation.

Her journey is unlike any we've featured. The daughter of a traditional chief and granddaughter of a former homeland chief minister, she grew up in Limpopo — technically a princess, though you'd never hear it from her — before heading to UCT to study medicine. As a junior doctor in the public sector, she found herself at 2 a.m. forced to choose which of two mothers went to theatre first, performing a Caesarean section she says she wasn't yet qualified to do, because the senior on call refused to come in. Experiences like these, she says, planted the seed: the system itself needed fixing, not just the patient in front of her.

So she did something almost no one does — she studied for her LLB at Wits full-time while working weekends, public holidays and school holidays in emergency departments to pay her fees. She went on to practise at Adams & Adams on the plaintiff side, then crossed over to defend doctors at Webber Wentzel, before heading up legal at a medical indemnity brokerage and ultimately starting her own consultancy.

Along the way, she unpacks what doctors get wrong about the HPCSA, why she believes most patients sue for answers and accountability rather than money, why specialists get sued more often than GPs, and why, in her view, communication remains the single best protection a clinician has. She also shares her own venture into podcasting with The Legal Clinic, her show educating doctors on the legal side of practice.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.
🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.
💬 Enjoyed the episode?
Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.
🔗 Connect with us:
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🚀 Want to collaborate, support the show, or find out more?
Visit whydidibecomeadoctor.com or email us at info@whydidibecomeadoctor.com.

This episode is brought to you by Bedfordview Dental Care. https://bedfordviewdentalcare.co.za/

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Dr Kiash Arjun is a 26-year-old dentist working in private practice in Pietermaritzburg — and a recording artist with original songs on radio, an EP, an album, and a history of gigging his way through dental school. He takes us from growing up in Verulam and receiving his first guitar as a seventh birthday gift from his late grandfather, to opening for Jeremy Loops at Park Acoustics, to navigating the jump from community service at KwaDabeka to private practice.

Kiash speaks candidly about what dental school at the University of Pretoria actually looks like from the inside, the friendships and the band he built along the way, and why he was terrified of Pietermaritzburg before growing to love it. He talks about his mentor Dr Elvin Naidoo — whose philosophy of treating the whole patient, not just the problem, changed how Kiash thinks about dentistry — and about the postgrad in dental aesthetics he is currently pursuing through the University of the Western Cape.

But this conversation keeps returning to music. Kiash explains how he writes songs, why he records voice memos at the gym and in the car, how he got his song to number one on the 5FM pop charts, and why he is still figuring out whether he is a dentist who does music or a musician who does dentistry. He also opens up about imposter syndrome, the doubts that come with being a young dentist, and why having an outlet matters more than people admit.

Along the way, he performs several original songs — including "Lady Smith," available now on all streaming platforms — covers a Justin Bieber classic, improvises a wedding song on the spot, and closes the episode with his go-to song, "Stay."

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.
🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.
💬 Enjoyed the episode?
Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.
🔗 Connect with us:
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter (X)
• LinkedIn
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🚀 Want to collaborate, support the show, or find out more?
Visit whydidibecomeadoctor.com or email us at info@whydidibecomeadoctor.com.