Associate Professor Lionel Green-Thompson was appointed dean and took up the role from 15 March 2020.

He has held multiple roles at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), including being the assistant dean for Teaching, Learning and Undergraduate Affairs in the Faculty of Health Sciences. He was also the clinical coordinator for the MBBCh degree in the Centre for Health Science Education from 2004, during which time he engaged in numerous student development initiatives, including the supervision of MMed (Anaesthesia) students.

He graduated from Wits with an MBBCh in 1988. He is a Fellow of the College of Anaesthetists of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He obtained his MMed (Anaesthesia) at Wits in 2011 and completed a two-year Wits Carnegie Clinical PhD Fellowship.

He was national chairperson for the South African Association of Health Educationalists for the 2010 to 2013 triennium and chaired the national conference held at Wits in 2010 titled “Making Education Matter”.

Associate Professor Green-Thompson is an occasional reviewer for academic journals such as the South African Journal of Surgery, South African Journal of Psychiatry, South African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia, African Journal of Health Professions Education and, internationally, Medical Teacher and BMC Medical Education. He is a member of the Research Committee of the Association for Medical Education in Europe for the term 2018 to 2022.

He is currently the chair of the network for Medical Education in Resource Constrained Situations. In 2019 he was nominated to the board of directors of the network Towards Unity for Health.