A visit with Dr. Francis Slate
In preparation for our trip to South Africa, I thought I would pay a visit to the former mayor of Mocksville and notable physician, Dr. Francis Slate. He recently celebrated his one-hundredth birthday, which is quite a milestone. I reminded him that he was my surgeon at the Davie County Hospital when I was about four years old. When I told him I was going to South Africa, and more specifically to Johannesburg and Cape Town, his eyes lit up. Dr. Slate graduated in 1947 from the University of Cape Town medical school which was a six-year course. He received a degree, CHb in surgery. Afterward, he participated in his internship at Cape Town, SA , and then a six months internship in Durban, SA, and then he worked at the Johannesburg Mission Hospital, where he later left to do a one-year stent in the landlocked country of Lesotho, a country surrounded by South Africa. He later found himself at New York University and George Washington University and spent two years with the Veteran's Ad...