SA’s youngest doctor hails from Newcastle

His sisters jokingly call him South Africa’s Doogie Howser. While he is familiar with the name Doogie Howser, Dr Sandile Kubheka admits that he doesn’t even know what the leading actor looks like, having never watched a single episode of the 90s sitcom that aired its final season the year he was born.

“I guess I have to do a Google search and find out,” he laughs.

Like Doogie (a child genius who joins the medical fraternity played by Neil Patrick Harris), Sandile excelled academically and was subsequently promoted to Grade 7 after spending just three months in Grade 6 at Jobstown Primary in Masondeza in Madadeni, Section 7.

He matriculated at Siyamukela High School in Madadeni, Section 2, at the age of 15 and went on to study towards a Bachelors degree in Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Nelson Mandela School of Medicine.

“In high school, I enjoyed helping people and I also really liked computers. My teachers said I would be better in medicine, but I still applied for a qualification in computer engineering just in case I wasn’t accepted for medicine. When I started doing medicine, I enjoyed it so much that there was nothing else I wanted to do. It felt like this was the only thing I could have done,” said Sandile.

“In my first year at university, I was teased a lot for being the ‘baby’ in the class. My peers called me ‘the neonate’ (a newborn). In my second year, they called me ‘the infant’, but I acted mature and I made friends and eventually I was selected for the Good Fellowship Award and received a bursary for compassion, empathy and caring shown to other students over the previous five years. In the end, people actually felt sorry for me because I was the youngest in the class and really went out of their way to help me. During the finals, someone had stolen my laptop and all my work was gone, but everyone was so supportive, offering to help and asking if I needed assistance with the typing to catch up on assignments.”

At age 20, Sandile is South Africa’s youngest medical practitioner and has been employed by Greys Hospital in Pietermaritzburg.

Sandile cautions former matrics that being a successful university student requires a dramatic change in study technique.

“Most pupils think that studying for matric is the hardest thing in their lives, but university is harder. I remember my first day of lectures, when such a large volume of work was covered, I was like, ‘Huh?’ Some people stayed in the library from morning till night and still didn’t perform very well. It is a big transition from high school to university and the best I can advise is to ask your seniors to help you adjust your study technique until you find what works best for you. It is important that you remember what you are there for, to study. Also, get involved in extra-curricular activities as it helps broaden your mind.”

Having volunteered at the Madadeni Hospital during the December holidays, we asked Sandile his opinion about rationalisation.

“If rationalisation is for the betterment of medical care at both the Newcastle Provincial Hospital and in the Madadeni Provincial Hospital then I am all for it. However, if you rationalise and move family medicine, a functioning trauma department must be established to stabilise patients. If the doctors are not happy, then something needs to be done to improve the service. At the end of the day, we are there to save patients’ lives and if they die after being turned away from a medical facility that does not have the resources to deal with an emergency, you are responsible.”

Sandile thanks his mother who has worked at Shoprite for more than 35 years to single-handedly raise five children. He also thanks his sisters for their ongoing support, and his peers at medical school who assisted him.

His ambitions for the future include furthering his studies in internal medicine, putting a smile on every patient’s face and being the best that he can be.