History
The Department of Surgery of the University of Ibadan and the
University College Hospital, Ibadan is one of the foundation Departments of
the University College, Ibadan established in 1948. The first Head of
Department was Professor Beatrice M. Jolly. The Department began at the old
Adeoyo Hospital and moved to the present University College Hospital site
following the completion of the Hospital in 1958.
Clinical undergraduate training in Surgery began in 1958 and the first set of
clinical students trained in the Department graduated in 1961. No formal
postgraduate professional training was carried out initially. However, from
1958 a form of postgraduate training began with trainees being prepared for
the Fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of the U.K. This went on
until 1970 when the Faculty of Medicine introduced the Master of Medicine
(M.Med), programmed as an academic and professional programme.
However, although postgraduate activities were evolved to satisfy the
requirements of M.Med (Surgery), none of the Registrars in the Department
completed the programme until it was taken over by the Residency programmes
of the National postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria and the West African
College of Surgeon.
At the inception of the Medical School, there were only three clinical
Departments namely: Surgery, Medicine and Preventive and Social Medicine.
Over the years however, the following Departments have been carved out of the
original Department of Surgery namely: Anaesthesia, Opthalmology and
Otorhinolaryngology. In addition, Dentistry began in the Department of
Surgery as the Maxillofacial Unit in 1967, but with the establishment of the
Faculty of Clinical Sciences and Dentistry in 1980, the unit became one of
the constituent Departments of Dentistry. The academic Department of
Physiotherapy also began as a Unit in the Department of Surgery in 1973 and
became an autonomous Department in 1980.
With the establishment of the College of Medicine, University of Lagos and
Faculty of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Enugu, there was movement of both
pre-and post fellowship members of the Department to these institutions as
foundation staff. It is therefore to the credit of the Department of Surgery,
University of Ibadan that it has not only given rise to many Departments in
the University of Ibadan and the University College Hospital, but has also
produced foundation members of the Department of Surgery of the University of
Lagos and University of Nigeria, Enugu.
Starting with General Surgery and Orthopaedic Surgery, at its inception, the
following units have evolved in the Department: Neurosurgery (1968), Plastic
Surgery (1969), Urology (1972), Cardiothoracic Surgery (1977) and Paediatric
surgery (1981). The General Surgery section of the Department was split into
three Units in 1981 in order to accommodate the increasing number of
Residents for training. Currently, there are about 50 Residents in the
Department, of whom 33 are primarily employed by the U.C.H. while the rest
are supernumerary or on short-term attachment to specialties like Neurologic,
Urologic, Plastic and Cardiothoracic Surgery. There are also 28 House
Surgeons.