Donald’s 18-year quest to be a doctor

Published Jul 16, 2015

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Johannesburg - Donald Nghonyama’s story is one of perseverance, despite repeated failures.

It took him 18 years to complete a six-year undergraduate Bachelor of Medicine degree.

But throughout the uphill journey, Nghonyama, 38, from Nkowa Nkowa township outside Tzaneen in Limpopo, never gave up his childhood dream.

After nearly two decades, he graduated last week with an MBChB degree from the University of Limpopo.

This makes him the first one in a family of 18 children to obtain a university degree.

 

His father had three wives. Two, including his mother, each had eight children and the third wife had two children.

He matriculated at Bankuna High School in 1996. The next year, he enrolled for a medical science degree at the Medical University of Southern Africa (Medunsa), which became the University of Limpopo.

“One of my uncles used to take me along when he visited his friends who worked at the Wits Medical School. That’s when I began to love medicine,” Nghonyama said.

“Medicine is all about helping people. I love helping others and that fulfils me,” he said.

It was only in 1997, when he enrolled at Medunsa, that Nghonyama’s aspirations seemed to reach the horizon.

But tough times lay ahead. He passed all his modules in his first year of study, but failed physiology.

“I repeated it (physiology) in 1998, and in 2000 I went to the third level,” Nghonyama said. He passed all his modules that year and was promoted to the fourth level in 2001.

“But I failed paediatrics and repeated it in 2002.”

He passed other modules, but failed paediatrics again and the university decided to academically exclude him. It was recommended that he register for a less intensive medical-related course as part of rehabilitation.

He didn’t studying in 2003.

Dejected, but still determined to pursue his medicine career, Nghonyama registered for a one-year nursing diploma at a college in Pretoria in 2004.

But his heart was still with Medunsa.

After completing his studies at the nursing college, where he was the overall best student, he returned to the university in 2005.

He thought he would resume his studies at level four, where he left off. But the university insisted that he first redo other modules, in addition to the paediatrics modules that he had failed.

“Because of the university rules, I had to repeat all the clinical modules, even those I had passed,” he said.

 

He then passed all the modules and was promoted to level five in 2006.

However, Nghonyama failed two modules, including his apparent nemesis - paediatrics.

“The following year, I repeated paediatrics and obstetrics,” he said. He passed the rest, but not paediatrics.

“In 2008, I had to redo paediatrics alone for the whole year,” he said. Still, he failed it and was academically excluded for three years.

Between 2009 and 2011, Nghonyama was in academic oblivion. “I was in the wilderness,” he said.

But he returned in 2012 after the university management agreed that he redo paediatrics for six months. When the results came back in June that year, he had failed.

The university gave him a chance to write supplementary exams in November 2012, but still he couldn’t pass. In January 2013, he lodged a query and demanded that his 2012 exam script be re-marked.

“The script was re-marked at Wits University, and when it returned, I had passed.” He was cleared to do his final year.

That same year, in 2014, students rioted on campus. “The students went on strike. They believed they were being treated unfairly in relation to paediatrics,” Nghonyama said.

The level five students who had failed paediatrics that year demanded that their scripts be re-marked by other universities. “When the re-marked scripts returned, all the level five students had passed.”

He passed last year and is doing his internship at Somerset Hospital in Cape Town.

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The Star

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