Even after a lost thesis and more than 40 years after he first set out to complete his Master’s Degree, Richard Borain recently proved that a dream deferred is never a dream denied as he finally walked across the graduation stage at 81 years old!
Eastern Cape, South Africa (17 December 2025) – Back in the 1980s, Richard Borain had his sights set on doing his Master’s degree in Pharmacy. He began the process, but as life and its unpredictable mishaps would have it, his studies were put on hold for much longer than he expected.
Many years later, it was his children, the very ones he taught the value of education, who encouraged and inspired him to go back and finish what he had started.
“What are you doing with your brain?” – Richard was asked by his sons, sparking the realisation of a dream that had been born over 40 years earlier.
At Nelson Mandela University’s (NMU) recent summer graduation, octogenarian Richard finally received his master’s degree in pharmacy.
Richard explained that he had always encouraged his children to value education. He has four sons; two are pharmacists, and the other two are chartered accountants, following in their mother’s footsteps.
After the university lost the thesis he was working on years ago, Richard dedicated himself to strengthening his pharmaceutical career, which he enjoyed immensely, NMU shares.
With a pharmacy career spanning more than forty years, Richard founded seven pharmacies before eventually selling to a large retail group. He still works as a locum at a pharmacy in Despatch on Sundays, and he plays tennis three times a week. He credits this hobby with helping him stay fit, healthy, and looking 20 years younger than his 81 years.
“Medicine is ever evolving, so if you don’t keep your hand on things, you will quickly be out of the loop,” he said.
His revised thesis and MPharm dissertation, supervised by Professor Ilse Truter, focused on the role of community pharmacies in providing immunisations and vaccinations in South Africa.
“My supervisor, Prof Truter, has been amazing, going out of her way to assist me on this journey,” said Richard, who was eagerly looking forward to his graduation.
Still very much intentional about keeping his “brain busy” and with a keen interest in snake medicine – having worked as a production manager at the South African Institute for Medical Research in the 1980s, where he was involved in manufacturing snake vaccines – Richard now plans to start his PhD, focusing on the quality validation in snake vaccine production.
Sources: Nelson Mandela University
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