21-year-old, Dr Thakgalo Thibela is South Africa’s youngest female Medical Doctor. She obtained her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery on 17 December 2020 from Wits University.
She comes from Violet Bank, a village in small town of Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga. She attended Farel Primary School where she was smart enough and skipped grade 7 straight to Lehlasedi High School where she also did not do Grade 9.
“I have always wanted to do medicine since my days in pre-school. This dream almost got shattered when my Grade 11 results came back and they were nowhere satisfactory and this pushed me to do my best in matric in order to get accepted to study medicine.
“I attended all the extra classes and studied throughout the night with my friends. This paid of though as I ended up with 7 out of 8 distinctions in matric,” said Dr Thibela.
At the tender age of 16, she got admitted to Wits University and continued to work hard in a cutthroat field of study and her efforts earned her a Golden Key International membership.
Dr Thakgalo Thibela is currently doing her internship at Helen Joseph Hospital and intends on becoming a neurosurgeon in the near future.