Laurence Levy

Professor Laurence Fraser Levy (16 November 1921 – 29 May 2007) was a pioneering neurosurgeon based in Harare, Zimbabwe, noted as the first neurosurgeon in Africa. He was Professor of Surgery and Anatomy at the University of Zimbabwe and managed to train about a dozen other neurosurgeons despite the lack of resources. He published more than 90 articles. He was also awarded a gold medal in 2005 by the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies.

Early life and education Born in London on 16 November 1921, Levy was the son of Hyman Levy, professor of mathematics at Imperial College London, and his wife Marion, a schoolmaster's daughter. He was educated at the King's College School in Wimbledon, south London, and Peter Symonds School in Winchester. He studied medicine at University College Hospital in London, qualifying in 1945. After completing a spell of national service as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, stationed at Lübeck on West Germany's north coast, he was a demonstrator of anatomy at the University of Toronto in Canada from 1950, then a resident in neurosurgery at New York University Hospital in 1954 and, a year later, Bellevue Hospital. He returned to the UK in 1956. Neurosurgeons he cited as influences included Canada's Wilder Penfield and Thomas Hoen of New York University.

By the time of his death in 2007, Levy was a trustee of the Epilepsy Support Foundation, an organisation he helped form in 1990 in Harare (as Salisbury was renamed in 1982). He had a very strong interest in epilepsy, beginning in the 1950s, when he treated Nicholas George as his seventh patient with epilepsy. At the age of 12, George was chased from a government school because of seizures and when he met Levy, he asked about forming an association to support people with epilepsy. The dream was realised year later on 17 April 1990 when the foundation was formed in Harare. George died in 1999, almost eight years before Levy's own death. The pair are highly credited for building it, which now runs the Nicholas George Epilepsy Centre and Professor Levy Epilepsy Clinic in Harare.