About Us

Our team currently consists of 4 individuals:

Jens Hitzeroth (Cardiologist)

Jens grew up in Cape Town and matriculated from the Deutsche Schule Kapstadt (German School Cape Town) in 1995. He completed his undergraduate medical studies at the University of Stellenbosch in 2001 and went on to do his internship at the Elim Hospital in the Limpopo Province.

In 2003 and 2004 he worked at the Klerksdorp/Tshepong Hospital complex in the department of medicine and in the department of anaesthesia. He obtained his diploma in anaesthesia here and won the award for Best Community Service Doctor.

He then went on to specialize in internal medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town graduating as a specialist physician in 2007. He super-specialized in cardiology after that and took up a post as a senior specialist in cardiology at Groote Schuur Hospital in 2010. He has an interest in interventional cardiology and device implantation and took on the position of the Director of the Catheterization Laboratory at Groote Schuur Hospital in 2013. He is part of the transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) program at Groote Schuur Hospital.

He became a CASSA (Cardiac Arrhythmia Society South Africa) accredited ICD (internal cardioverter-defibrillator) practitioner after performing the appropriate training and examination in 2012.

He is a member of the executive committee of the Heart Failure Society of South Africa.

Anel Hitzeroth (Practice Manager)

Anel Hitzeroth (nee Lombard) was born in Kroonstad. She grew up in the small town of Henneman for the first few years of her life and after many moves to different cities finally arrived in Johannesburg where she matriculated.

She went on to study physiotherapy at the University of Pretoria. From there she was sent to Klerksdorp for her community service year, where she met Jens. After finishing her year in Klerksdorp, she moved to Cape Town in 2005 to join Jens who was specializing there.

In the next 3 years she worked as a physiotherapist, got married in 2006 and eventually they had their first child in 2008. After baby number 2 in 2011 she stayed home for the next 2 years.

 In 2013 she became the practice manager for the cardiology practice of Jens. 

Ruth Petersen (Secretary)

Ruth grew up in Cape Town in the area of Kensington.  As a teenager she participated in all kinds of sports; she was named the 1st Leader Drummajorette and even became a Western Province Ice Skater.  In 1983, she matriculated from the Rocklands High School. She then started working as a secretary at a doctor’s practice in 1988. Eersteriver, Kuilsriver as well as Kingsbury are amongst the hospitals she has worked at.  She improved herself by going on courses to obtain the necessary skills to be not only a medical secretary but a practice manager as well. 

In 2009 Ruth took a different route and got her diploma as a Pharmacist’s Assistant at the Health Science Academy and then started to work part time at the City Chem Pharmacy in Bellville.  She then decided her passion and loyalty lie with her administrative work and went back to work as a Practice Manager for a doctor at Cape Gate while living in Gordon’s Bay, before making the move to join our practice at Vincent Pallotti Hospital.

After many years, Ruth decided to become more independent and went to obtain her driver’s license.  She was successful and now Ruth is experiencing the city life and the city’s traffic whilst working happily at Vincent Pallotti.

Luzaan Papenfus (Clinical Technologist)

Luzaan grew up in Makwassie, a small farm town in the North West province.  She matriculated from Wolmaransstad High School in 2006.  In 2007 she started her tertiary education at the Central University of Technology of the Free State (CUT) in Bloemfontein.  After completing the theoretical part of her studies she started working at Bloemfontein Medi-Clinic as a junior Cardiac Clinical Technologist. 

She then moved to Cape Town to work at Groote Schuur Hospital, where she finished her practical training while conducting a research study in factors causing coronary slow flow in patients with unobstructed coronary arteries and graduated as a Cardiac Clinical Technologist from CUT in 2011. She continued to work at Groote Schuur to obtain the necessary skills in cardiac pacing. In July 2012 she transferred to Tygerberg Hospital where she stayed on for 11 months to advance her skills in echocardiography before starting at Vincent Pallotti Hospital.