Our Founders
Professor Oritsejolomi Horatio Thomas
OON, FRSC
Professor Oritsejolomi Horatio Thomas (1917–1979), was a Nigerian medical pioneer specializing in facial reconstructive and plastic surgery. In his latter discipline he trained as an assistant to the wartime legend, Sir Archibald MacIndoe.
Professor Thomas was educated at Methodist Boys’ High School Lagos and Birmingham University England. He was a Nigerian academic and pioneer provost of the College of Medicine University of Lagos and the first Nigerian to be admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He was also the first head of the University’s Teaching Hospital, LUTH. He was a Senior Lecturer and a surgeon at the University of Ibadan, at the institution’s inception to 1962 before proceeding to Lagos. He was an editor of the West African Medical Journal and a member of the Federal Electoral Commission in 1958. He was the chairman of the advisory committee for the establishment of the Midwestern Medical Centre (now University of Benin Teaching Hospital) in the middle of 1969.
Horatio Orishejolomi Thomas was a distinguished alumnus of Birmingham University Medical School. He was the first Nigerian surgeon to become FRCS and in April 1962 he was invited by the Federal government of Nigeria to establish a medical school and teaching hospital at Lagos. Later in that year around September the hospital was open to patients and the medical school admitted 28 students. By the time these students had qualified in 1967 the Lagos University Medical School and teaching hospital had been recognized by international bodies in medical education and training. Thomas was Professor of Surgery there and Dean of the Medical School until 1967, First Provost until 1969. In 1972 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.
He frequently traveled to England, where he attended medical school. He wrote on Children’s Diseases in the Tropics and Sub-Tropics in 1970 and contributed to surgical and educational Literature. He served on the editorial Board Member of the British Journal of Surgery and served as editor of the West African Medical Journal for a considerable period of time. He participated in various WHO committees.
He was born on August 31, 1917, in Nigeria. Before attending Birmingham University, he attended Igboli College in Lagos. He had three kids and was married. He passed away on July 2, 1979.