07/08/2019

With an average of 88% for her Bachelor’s degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences, Ilse Nel had to work for 10 years before she could start her studies in biomedical technology. Ilse was the first-degree award winner in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the recent 2019 university academic award winners’ function. 

 

Vice-Chancellor Prof Sibongile Muthwa (left) and University Council Member Reverend Madika Sibeko (right) congratulate Ilse Nel.   

She was the top matriculant at Cillie High School in Port Elizabeth in her year and won academic awards and colours from Grade 9 onwards.

“We were not financially in the position to pay for tertiary education when I matriculated and I was also not sure what I wanted to study”, she says.

Ilse then worked for four years at a micro-lender where she started as an assistant and worked her way up to branch manager. She then worked for six years as a personal assistant at an engineering firm.

“I was always conflicted between following a career where I can directly help people and make a change, such as social work or psychology or a more fact-based science direction”.

She went for career testing and counselling at Mandela University and decided on medical technology, “the perfect marriage between science and helping people”, she says.

She paid for her first year of study from her savings, after which the diploma course was replaced by the new bachelor’s degree in Medical laboratory sciences, only the second university in South Africa to offer the new degree.

Ilse was then selected as one of five first-year diploma students to do the degree. “I am honoured that I could be part of the very first cohort of medical scientists produced by Nelson Mandela University”.

“I was fortunate enough to receive a bursary that covered my studies from my second year onward and was then in the position to accept the offer to do the degree. The bursary was offered by the NHLS (National Health Laboratory Services) where I am currently employed”, Ilse says.

She is currently working in the field that she studied and enjoys every day. She has an intense interest in research and a passion for the discipline of haematology and quality control to ensure that the results produced by the laboratory are accurate, as doctors use these results to treat patients.

“My plans for the future are to pursue my masters and doctorate in Medical Laboratory Sciences and to research topics that can make a very real impact in the medical field and the treatment of diseases.

“I am passionate about training and teaching students the qualities needed to be a good laboratory scientist, such as compassion, and being aware that there are patients and their families behind the results, depending on us to make sure that the results are accurate and to take pride in what we do.

“Laboratory staff operate largely behind the scenes and are to a large degree, the unsung heroes of the medical team”, she says.

 

She believes you can achieve whatever you put your mind to if you are prepared to work hard enough and her story is evidence of that.