Like Tinder for doctors: A platform linking surgeons with assistants

A South African health-tech platform helping surgeons access vetted surgical assistants in real time is rapidly gaining national attention – not only for solving operational challenges in theatre, but for creating opportunities within an increasingly pressured healthcare system.

Co-founded by Dr Le Roux Viljoen and AD Schoeman, The Surgical Assistant (TSA) was created from concerns of a growing disconnect between surgical demand and the availability of qualified assistants.

Viljoen says the concept wasn’t borne out of frustration from personal experience in theatre, but that the health-tech platform addresses a key a complex duality in the healthcare sector.

“The penny pretty much dropped for us on a Saturday when AD and I were standing next to a fire, having a beer and the Springboks were about to kick off at 17h00,” he says on Moneyweb’s Mzansi Business Podcast.

“A surgeon called me at 16h45 and asked if I could come and help him with a lady that broke her hip and needed a hip replacement.”

Viljoen was able to send a friend to assist.

“The surgeon was happy, the patient had a good outcome and the assistant was able to get into the theatre.

“That’s when I realised there should be a system that makes it that easy to get an assistant into the theatre. and that’s as simple as it started.”

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What began as informal spreadsheets and WhatsApp groups has evolved into a national digital platform connecting surgeons with vetted medical officers, GPs, and assistants across South Africa.

Today, TSA has onboarded more than 2 000 assistants and over 150 surgeons, while facilitating thousands of assisted procedures nationwide.

The platform streamlines theatre coordination, availability tracking, scheduling, vetting, and payment administration – helping to reduce delays, improve continuity in theatre, and ease the pressure on surgical teams.

“The full goal for us is to have every assistant assisting in one theatre slate once a week, so four slates a month,” says Viljoen.

“We’re still quite a bit from that, building our business and getting more surgeons on board but the reality is we want to go full circle with these doctors.”

Ecosystem

Alongside the staffing platform, TSA has expanded into a broader ecosystem that includes TSA Academy – an accredited training platform focused on upskilling assistants and junior doctors – as well as a non-profit initiative supporting unemployed doctors seeking clinical experience within the public sector.

Schoeman says the aim is to create an ecosystem that an assistant or unemployed doctor can walk into, and where they can grow both personally and within an academic environment.

“There [are] academics, in terms of your CPD [continuing professional development] courses and staying ahead of whatever is the most current, and then also the practical element – being in theatres, having time on cadavers, doing robotics training, doing laparoscopic training.”

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The company’s growth trajectory is not limited to the private sector, says Schoeman.

“We went to the private sector, where the money currently is, to unlock that opportunity – but at the end of the day, from an impact perspective, it is the state.

“The bigger problem comes from the state being ill-equipped, financially or in other kinds of way, and we’re utilising the private sector and efficiencies there to allow these young doctors to make a living.”

As TSA continues to scale nationally, the business is increasingly positioning itself not simply as a staffing platform, but as operational infrastructure for surgical healthcare – formalising the systems, trust, and coordination that surgical environments rely on every day.

You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.

* You can listen to the full podcast above or download it from iono, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. 

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