Meet the Surgeon who Never went to Medical School

 How would it sound if you heard someone never went to secondary school not to talk of a higher institution or had a medical degree, yet became a surgeon? Unbelievable, right? Yes unbelievable it sounds.

Well, meet the man, Hamilton Naki, who became a surgeon though he never went to medical school. He was born into a very poor family in the small village of Ngcangane in the Eastern Cape, in 1930. Due to how poor background, he only could afford a Primary education before leaving to search for a job just to survive.

Luckily, he was hired by the University of Cape Town to maintain the tennis courts on the university grounds.

In 1954, Professor Robert Goetz of the university’s surgical faculty asked Naki to assist him with the laboratory animals. He was there for a while and was able to quickly master basic surgical techiques. From there, he started from cleaning cages to performing simple anesthesia. He also assisted in operating on a giraffe. He became the laboratory assistant as the Professor was impressed by his hardwork and dexterity. 

In 1958, one Dr Christian Bernard arrived to work at the university and Naki started working for him in the laboratory as an assistant. Because of his remarkable skill and dexterity, he was then made Principal Surgical Assistant of the laboratory. Dr. Bernard admitted if Hamilton had the opportunity to study, he would have become an exceptional surgeon. He also said Naki was one of the greatest researchers of all time in the field of heart transplants.

In 1968, Dr. Bernard’s cardiac surgical research team moved out of the surgical laboratory, and Naki helped develop the piggyback or heterotopic heart transplantation technique; a heart transplant technique accomplished by leaving the recipient’s heart in place and connecting the donor heart to the right side of the chest.

In the 1970s, Naki left Bernard’s team and returned to the surgical laboratory, this time, working on liver transplantation.

He received countless awards due to his many achievements and research. He also taught many students during his career and assisted Hickman until his retirement.

He died in Langa on 29th of May, 2005 at the age of 78.

We should all learn from Hamilton Naki's story. Your background should not limit you to achieve anything in life. Put all of those behind and push forward till you catch something you would be proud of. If you desire it, you can get it.

CC