St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest medical schools in the UK. The school ceased to exist from 1982, becoming initially part of the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals and in 1998 part of King's College London GKT School of Medical Education.
Contents
History
The school was part of one of the oldest hospitals in London, St Thomas's Hospital established in 1173 but whose roots can be traced to the establishment of St Mary Overie Priory in 1106. According to historical records St Thomas's Hospital Medical School was founded in about 1550. It was admitted as a school of the University of London in 1900 but remained a constituent part of St Thomas's Hospital until 1948 when it formally became part of the university. In 1982, it merged with the medical school at Guy's Hospital to form the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals. In turn UMDS was absorbed by King's College London School of Medicine and Dentistry, but the dentists have since been split out into The Dental Institute.
Name
Unlike the hospital which in recent times dropped the possessive "s", the medical school continued with the original spelling.
Departments
Department of Community Medicine
Notable people
Notable former members of staff
Thomas Wharton (1614–1673) - anatomist best known for his descriptions of the submandibular duct
William Cheselden (1688–1752) - surgeon and specialist in the removal of bladder stones
Astley Cooper (1768–1841) - surgeon and anatomist
Thomas Wakley (1795–1862) - surgeon and social reformer
Edward Headlam Greenhow (1814–1888) - first lecturer appointed at St Thomas's
Herbert Barrie (1927-2017) - neonatologist
Beulah Bewley (1929–2018) - campaigner for women's opportunities in medicine
Karen Dunnell (b. 1946) - UK National Statistician
Doug Altman (1948–2018) - statistician
Notable alumni
John Sherwen (1749–1846) - Physician and author
Sir Bryan Donkin (1845-1927) - physician and criminologist
Takaki Kanehiro (1849–1920) - Japanese naval doctor, first person to discover the link between beriberi and diet.
Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952) - Nobel Prize for Physiology for work on functions of neurons
Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) - Physician, sexual psychologist and social reformer.
Oguntola Sapara (1861–1935) - Medical doctor and activist. Known for Smallpox eradication in Nigeria.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) - Playwright, novelist, short story writer.
Eric Anson (1892–1969) - New Zealand's first specialist anaesthetist.
Max Theiler (1899 – 1972) - Virologist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine for yellow fever
Harold Ridley (1906–2001) - ophthalmologist who invented intraocular lens
John B. Harman (1907–1995) - president of the Medical Defence Union and chairman of the British National Formulary
Rustom Jal Vakil (1911-1974) - Eminent Indian cardiologist, recipient of the prestigious Lasker Prize known as the American Nobel.
David Anderson, 2nd Viscount Waverley (1911 – 1990), British cardiologist and member of the House of Lords