Thomas Thomas (surgeon)

Thomas Thomas (1917 to 1998) was the first cardio-thoracic surgeon of Indian citizenship, and also a prolific author and poet. He trained at Madras Christian College and Stanley Medical College and received his MBBS from the University of Madras in 1945. He then worked in thoracic surgery at Christian Medical College, Vellore, under Reeve H. Betts, with whom he co-authored research from 1951 on thoracic surgery, patent ductus arteriosus and intrathoracic hydatid disease. A Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in 1954 took him to the United States for further study in thoracic surgery, and he did further medical research in London and Edinburgh. He later worked at Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, and towards the end of 1964 became Director of Thoracic Surgery at Lisie Hospital, Ernakulam, where he established the thoracic surgery department; the hospital credits him with pioneering cardiac surgery, including open-heart surgery, in Kerala. He was also appointed Professor of Surgery at Alleppey Medical College. Alongside medicine he wrote fiction under the pen name Nirmal Jacob, and he died in Sydney at the age of 81.