A guide to becoming a doctor in South Africa

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It is the dream of many South African parents for their kids to become medical doctors. Television shows like Greys Anatomy also play an influential role when it comes to deciding a future career in high school. Many high school learners have the dream to become medical doctors but unfortunately there are not enough medical schools in South Africa or enough spaces in the lecture theatres. The demand for a medical doctors in South Africa far exceeds the supply.

Each university is different and has different criteria. And you can check out the criteria required by each medical school by going to their websites (listed later on in this post) and downloading the prospectus for each university. Generally speaking though, medicine is one of the most competitive courses to get into in South Africa as the top students from all provinces and other African countries apply for positions in South African medical schools (because we have some of the best medical schools in the world). It is easier to get accepted into medical school if you are black or coloured compared to Indian or White applicants, as the notorious “Quota System” is used in South Africa to address the imbalances of the past so that medical schools and doctors graduating are representative of the South African demographic. An article by new24 stated that Nelson R. Mandela Medical School had 250 seats for first year medicine and of those 250, 69% of the students accepted are black, 19% Indian, 9% Coloured, 2% White and 1% other. Other universities have different ratios of course. The average marks of the students accepted for each racial group are not the same, by this I mean if you are black you will be competing against the top black applicants to that university, so in the case of Nelson R. Mandela Medical School, if you are black there are 173 seats for black students, so you would have to be part of the top 173 black applicants to that university. The lowest weighted academic average for black students accepted at Nelson R. Mandela Medical School was 83,16% compared to 75.5% for coloured students, 90.86% for Indian students and 87,66% for white students. By using this information alone you can tell that it will be more difficult for white and indian students to find a place in a South African medical school as they would have to be 90’s students. The competition is even worse at the country's top universities such as UCT, WITS & UP.

Many South Africans who are really passionate about becoming doctors end up going to study medicine in other countries because they cannot get a place at a South African medical school as it is too difficult to get accepted if you are not black or coloured.

Maths (not maths Literacy), physical science and life sciences are the subjects generally required when applying for medicine in South Africa but I know a few people who have been accepted into medical school and have done well despite not having done life sciences in high school.

To become a doctor in South Africa you have to study for 6 years (5 years at UFS) or 7 years if you are on the extended programme provided you do not fail any year.

I took the average fee for medicine given by university or the fee for 1^st year where that was given. It was hard to find the fees for Walter Sisulu University, if anyone attends there, please share the fees via email or on our FB page.

Each university shares bursaries or funding opportunities in its fees handbook/site so you must take a look at that, as well as contacting the department of health via the contact details I shared to check for bursaries as well as your local municipalities as there are medicine bursaries awarded each year. Another way to find bursaries is to simply type “medicine bursaries South Africa” on google every now and then to see if there are any new bursaries you can apply for. If you are poor you can apply for nsfas.

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