Cum Laude Graduate ‘Done with Studying’

BY: .

‘I am done with studying now. This is my third qualification,’ said Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) student Dr Minette McCabe, who graduated cum laude.

McCabe said she tried to get into medicine since the day she left school. ‘I did not succeed at first and decided to study BSc: Human Genetics.’

She applied twice again unsuccessfully and then did a BSc Honours in Aquaculture, giving up on medicine and started work as a fish farmer.

McCabe then moved to the United Kingdom where she worked at Heathrow as a livestock import supervisor, importing animals ranging from gorillas and tigers to snow leopards and hippos!

‘But I still wanted to be a doctor and I decided to apply at all the South African universities and also some foreign ones. I managed to get in at UKZN at the age of 31 and the rest is history as they say.’

She plans to be the best doctor she can be, in the smallest of towns in the bushveld.  She also plans to start farming on the side and teach people sustainable farming.

She said the love of life and her family kept her going. ’My family is extremely happy and proud of me. It is the best family under the sun.’

She said among her highlights as a student at UKZN were the friends she made and the amazing teachers she met.

McCabe received the UKZN Academic Scholarship for distinction average in 2011, and a Surgery: Certificate of Merit in 2014.

Her sporting achievements include playing chess in the Far Northern Transvaal championships, and representing the then Northern Transvaal and the University of Pretoria in judo.

Nombuso Dlamini