Dr. Johan van der Merwe completed various international teaching courses under expert guidance and was selected to participate in the prestigious London Deanery (London Educational Board, Health Education England) teaching and training development program during his clinical fellowship in 2011-2012. He is a regular teaching contributor to the Western Cape Advanced Trauma Life Support faculty, introduced the internationally recognised Cardiac Surgical Unit – Advanced Life Support courses (provider and train-the-trainer) and Resuscitation and Acute Emergencies in the CathLab courses (provider and train-the-trainer) in Africa and was appointed as African representative / course coordinator by Cardiac Acute Resuscitation Education (United Kingdom).

Dr. Johan van der Merwe developed a cardiac critical care core curriculum for nursing professionals in private practice and subsequently established the African Centre for Cardiothoracic Training and Education as a platform for teaching state-of-the-art cardiothoracic surgery procedures and patient care. His teaching output focus on the impact of structured acute protocols on cardiac surgery intensive care teamwork. He contributed to the training of cardiothoracic surgery registrars during his appointment as consultant at the University of Pretoria (2010) and serve as an external examiner of post-graduate students at the University of Cape Town.

Dr. Johan van der Merwe is an active contributor to local and regional continued medical education and is also a frequent panellist at various international and local conferences.