Born on 8 June 1914 in Cardiff, Eric Granville Dolton was educated at Acton County School and St Thomas's Hospital. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in January 1938 and was awarded the degree of MB BS London in May of the same year. He obtained FRCS in 1940. Having had a leg amputated he was n

Little is known about David Chukuagugua Nwafo except that he qualified MB BS in 1960 and passed the College Fellowship in 1964. He worked at the Liverpool Cardio-Thoracic Surgical Centre and, at the time of his death in 1976, he held an appointment at the thoracic and cardiac surgical unit at Harefi

Keith Roberts was a consultant cardiothoracic paediatric surgeon in Birmingham. He was born on 15 February 1923 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the only child of the Reverend Meredith Danford Roberts, a Congregational minister, and his wife, Caroline Lettie Roberts née Stuart, a teacher born in South Afr

Ben Milstein was a consultant thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge. He was one of the unsung heroes of cardiothoracic surgery. He was born in Dublin on 30 September 1918, the first son of orthodox Jewish immigrant parents, Hershel and Rebecca Milstein. The family later

Leon Abrams was a cardiothoracic surgeon who developed the first variable-rate heart pacemaker. He was born in Leeds, but his family soon moved to Birmingham, where he spent most of his life, apart from a short period of National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After medical school in Bi

Kausik Bhattacharya was a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He trained at St George's Hospital and qualified MB BS from London University in 1990. Early appointments were at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor and the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (1995-97). He passed the fellowship i

Ahmed Abdel Aziz Yacoub, widely known as Ahmed Abdel Aziz, was a pioneering Sudanese cardiothoracic surgeon. A charismatic leader and gifted teacher, he was a staunch advocate of training in surgery in the Sudan. He was born in Gubbat Salim, Abri, in northern Sudan on 12 January 1931. His father was

Robert Stuart Bonser was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. He was born in Walsall, in the heart of the Black Country, and was educated at the local secondary school. He subsequently won a place to study medicine at Cardiff University. Following his graduati

Thomas Holmes Sellors, the only son of Dr Thomas Blanchard Sellors, a general practitioner and of Anne Oliver Sellors (née McSparron) was born on 7 April 1902, at Wandsworth. A few years later his father moved his practice to Southend-on-Sea and Tom, as he was always known, went to Alleyn Court Prep

John Laurence Mercer was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Broad Green and Fazakerley hospitals, Liverpool. He was born in 1932, the elder son of Major Laurence Walter Mercer, studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School and qualified MB BS in 1958. He won the Hallett prize in 1960 a

Born in Ceylon in 1949, Sabanathan qualified in 1972 and, after junior posts, came to England in 1977 to specialise in surgery. He was appointed consultant cardiothoracic surgeon to the Bradford Royal Infirmary in 1989, where he developed a number of ingenious new techniques, including a method of c

Nigel Richard Saunders was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon in Leeds. He was born in Brighton on 22 January 1946, the son of Donald Allan Garner Saunders, a bank manager, and Joan Cathleen Mary Snelling. He was educated at Reigate Grammar School and Hurstpierpoint College, from which he won a Smy