Graduate who never gave up proudly holds medical degree after 18 years
JOHANNESBURG: Donald Nghonyama’s story is that of perseverance, despite repeated failures. It took him 18 years to complete a six-year undergraduate degree in medicine. And he’s now doing an internship at Somerset Hospital in the city.
But throughout the uphill journey, Nghonyama, 38, from Nkowa Nkowa 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 in a family of 18 children to obtain a university degree.
His father had three wives. Two of his father’s wives, including his mother, each had eight children and the third wife had two.
He matriculated from Bankuna High School in 1996, and the next year he enrolled for a medical science degree at Medunsa, which later became the University of Limpopo.
Nghonyama had a medical
“One of my uncles used to take me along when he visited his friends. That’s when I began to love medicine,” he said. “Medicine is all about helping people. I love helping others, and that fulfils me.”
However, tough times lay ahead as he started university. He passed all his modules in his first year, but failed physiology while in his second year.
“I repeated it (physiology) in 1998, and in 2000 I went to the third level,” said Nghonyama.
He passed all his modules that year and was promoted to the fourth level in 2001.
“I failed pediatrics and repeated it in 2002.”
He passed other modules but failed pediatrics again, and the university academically excluded him. It was advised that he register for a less intensive medical-related course as part of rehabilitation. He spent 2003 not studying.
Dejected but still determined, Nghonyama registered for a one-year nursing diploma at a college in Pretoria in 2004. After completing this, where he was the overall best student, he returned to his university in 2005. But the university insisted that he first redo other modules.
He then passed all the modules and was promoted to level five in 2006. However, Nghonyama failed two modules, including his apparent nemesis – pediatrics. “The following year, I repeated pediatrics and obstetrics,” he said.
He passed the rest, but not pediatrics. “In 2008 I had to redo pediatrics alone for the whole year,” he said. Still, he failed it and was academically excluded for three years.
He returned in 2012 after university management agreed that he redo pediatrics for six months. When the results came back in June that year, he had failed. He wrote supplementary examinations in November that year, but still couldn’t pass.
In January 2013, he lodged a query and demanded that his exam script be remarked.
“The script was remarked at Wits University and when it returned, I had passed,” he said, adding that he was cleared to do his final year.
This was last year, when students rioted on campus. He said level-five students who had failed pediatrics that year demanded that their scripts be remarked by other universities and they passed.
“At the end of 2014, I wrote my final exam and I passed. I completed it after 18 years,” said the spirited Nghonyama.
After his internship, he plans to return to Limpopo to work at one of the local hospitals because most of his studies were financed by the provincial government.