The human spirit: A lesson in determination and courage from a medical student

“Although rejection kept knocking on my front door, I had to keep going, focusing and diligently working on the opportunity I had to study clinical technology and medicine.”

Bianca Vermeulen (28) was reminiscing about the courage that got her where she is today, despite being rejected 32 times in eight years by nine institutions of higher learning.

Vermeulen said that attaining her goals required working very long hours to save enough money to finance her own education because nobody else in her family would. Her efforts finally paid off when she was accepted for a medical degree by the University of the Free State.

She said when she looked back on all those years, she came to the realisation that it was not about how well one does but more about how they confront adversity.

“Even though I’m studying medicine now, I still have to maintain my focus,” said Vermeulen.

Her road to attaining her academic goals was a very rocky one and she never took well to rejection. “As humans we are not designed to take kindly to rejection,” said Vermeulen.

She grew up in Henley on Klip, a small village between Johannesburg and Vereeniging and matriculated at Hoër Tegniese Skool in Vereeniging in 2011. 

After completing her matric, Vermeulen could not afford to further her studies.

“Sometimes you need to allow yourself to be enticed by the tougher road if it presents better prospects,” she said.

She said in the past few years she had applied to study medicine at nine different institutions and all rejected her.

This strengthened her determination and focus.

“I was urged by a powerful force of self-determination and support from friends and colleagues.”

She said another valuable lesson she had learnt was always to be determined. The only response to failure was to stand up, dust yourself off and try again and again.

“I also learnt to be patient,” said Vermeulen.

She cited tensions among her family as one of the reasons she did not do as well as she had anticipated in matric.

“At the end, my results were not good enough to be accepted into the MBChB programme.”

Disappointment, grief and loss are personal. Even during these crushing times, people can still find great strength, inspiration and deeper meaning.