Clement Price Thomas

Sir Clement Price Thomas (22 November 1893 – 19 March 1973) was a pioneering Welsh thoracic surgeon most famous for his 1951 operation on King George VI.

Following a scholarship to Westminster Hospital Medical School, Price Thomas was posted to the Middle East at the onset of the First World War. He resumed his surgical training on return and was ultimately elected on to the surgical team of the hospital.

Encouraged to pursue thoracic surgery by Tudor Edwards, Price Thomas took up, along with other posts, a thoracic surgery placement at the Royal Brompton Hospital, a specialist hospital for chest diseases. His reputation from his work on surgical techniques in pulmonary tuberculosis led to the decision that he would undertake the lung surgery on King George VI in 1951. Its success resulted in Price Thomas being appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO).

Price Thomas was elected as president to numerous significant bodies during his career, including, the British Medical Association, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Association of Thoracic Surgeons, the Thoracic Society and the Welsh National School of Medicine. A forerunner of thoracic surgery on the international platform, he delivered a number of eponymous lectures and received several honorary degrees.

Price Thomas, less well known for his cardiac surgery, also introduced surgery for coarctation of the aorta to the United Kingdom, a procedure he learnt from Clarence Crafoord.

He suffered from lung cancer in his later years, he was a lifelong cigarette smoker, and died at the age of 79 years, leaving a wife and two sons, one of whom became a surgeon.

Early life Clement Price Thomas was born in Abercarn, Monmouthshire. He was the youngest child of a family of nine children and they lived on Islwyn Street. His father William Thomas was a grocer and his mother, Rosamund Gertrude Price, was a clergyman's daughter. He attended Newport High School before going to Caterham School at the age of 13 years, a boarding school in Surrey. He then proceeded to the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire.

Price Thomas was awarded the Hughes Medal in anatomy whilst he was a student at Cardiff Medical School. Although his ambition was initially to enter dental surgery, he was subsequently awarded a scholarship to study medicine at the Westminster Hospital Medical School.

Medical career Westminster Hospital in the mid-1920s. The hospital was demolished in the early 1950s, this is now the site of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. In 1921, after the war, Price Thomas achieved the Conjoint Board Diploma, LRCP and then in 1923, attained the FRCS (Eng). At the time, he continued to gain clinical experience at Westminster Hospital with his residential appointments and was sequentially kept as a permanent member of the clinical team there. He was introduced to thoracic surgery by Tudor Edwards, an eminent thoracic surgeon of the time, Later, during a Tudor Edwards memorial lecture, Sir Russell Brock, Baron Brock commented that no-one knew Tudor Edwards better than Price Thomas. Price Thomas went on to show how a bronchial blockage from tuberculosis could be resected and the two ends of the bronchus could be sewn together, uniting in a similar way as two ends of intestine. He had his own rationale for collapse therapy of the lung and specifically of selective partial thoracoplasty with apicolysis in the treatment of tuberculosis.

He was awarded honorary degrees by the universities of Wales, Belfast, Paris, Lisbon, Athens and Karachi.

The king had been unwell in 1951, and was advised by his physicians Sir Daniel Davies, Sir Horace Evans, Geoffrey Marshall and Sir John Weir, to return to London from Balmoral and confine himself to his room. He was described as having 'catarrhal inflammation', and rest may improve it. However, he did not improve and was considerably weak, thin and pale with little exercise tolerance due to intermittent claudication. a Westminster Hospital radiologist, suggested a tumour, and after Sir Horace Evans consulted Price Thomas, a bronchoscopy was scheduled. The bronchoscopy and biopsy were performed on 16 September, transported to the Brompton hospital by Price Thomas's son, Brian, and the result confirmed a lung tumor. Following surgery, the king was moved back into his own bedroom.

Despite injury to the left recurrent laryngeal nerve and an effect on the king's voice, the cancerous lung was successfully removed.

Family life In 1925, Price Thomas married Ethel Doris, whose father was Mortimer Ricks from Paignton in South Devon. He had interests in golf, photography and reading.

Price Thomas lived in St John's Wood, was very welcoming and deeply religious. He was also dedicated to his wife and sons.

Price Thomas was a chain-smoker himself, carrying at least 50 cigarettes in his pocket, and consequently, he suffered from lung cancer. His caricature in Ellis's Operations that made history, 1996, shows a suited Price Thomas with numerous cigarette stubs at his feet.

Despite his ill-health, he remained actively involved in his presidential projects. As president of the Welsh National School of Medicine, Price Thomas remained active in matters of medical education and the school progressed under his leadership. He continued to attend council meetings and ceremonies. In 1965 he laid the foundation stone of a large medical teaching centre in Heath Park, which is situated in the north of Cardiff. This centre incorporated the University Hospital of Wales, a new dental school and hospital and also the Tenovus Institute for Cancer Research.

National Honours Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (1951)

Medical Honours Honorary Legum Doctor Wales (1953) Honorary Doctor of Medicine Paris (1954) Honorary Doctor of Medicine Paris (1956) Honorary Legum Doctor Belfast (1962) Honorary Doctor of Medicine Lisbon (1964) Honorary Doctor of Medicine Karachi (1966) Honorary Doctor of Medicine Athens (1970) Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) - 1954 Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (FRCSI) Honorary Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (FRCSE)

Legacy

Price Thomas Travelling Fellowship Price Thomas was the third president of the Travelling Surgical Club, as it was known from 1952 to 1972. Now known as the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain, the Price Thomas Travelling Fellowship was established in the memory of Price Thomas and his surgeon son Martyn. Two bursaries are awarded annually to inspire education and encourage surgical exchanges.

Memorabilia of The King's Surgery The operating table is on display at Westminster Hospital, while Cyril F. Scurr donated the ECG machine to the British Oxygen Company Museum at the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain. The controversies over the cause of the king's death were also touched on in the 2010 film The King's Speech.