Meet Ghanaian oldest living medical practitioner, Dr E Evans-Anform

Dr Emmanuel Evans-Anform, was born on 7 October, 1919 in Accra, Ghana.

He is a distinguished Surgeon, Scientist, Scholar, Sportsman, Educationist, Administrator, Counsellor on Public Affairs and a Humanitarian.

Dr Emmanuel Evans-Anform; the oldest living medical practitioner in Ghana.

In 1925, he enrolled at the Government Boys School in Jamestown, Accra and proceeded to the Presbyterian middle boarding school (The Salem School) at Osu, Accra, where the principal at the time, Carl Henry Clerk encouraged him to apply for a Cadbury Scholarship for study at Achimota School in Accra instead of going the normal teacher-training route at the Basel Mission-founded Presbyterian teacher training seminary at Akropong-Akwapem,Ghana.

In January 1939, he enrolled in the inter-preliminary medical course of Science at Achimota School, In that course, he received advanced training in physics, chemistry, botany and zoology.

He won a Gold Coast medical scholarship in 1941 to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1947.

He also studied in a postgraduate diploma course in tropical medicine, completing in 1950.

Evans-Anfom worked in various hospitals in the government medical system namely: Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital-Accra, Dunkwa-On-Offin Government Hospital, Tarkwa Government Hospital, the Kumasi Central Hospital, Tamale Government Hospital and Effia Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi.

In 1963, Evans-Anfom accepted a teaching professorship position at the then newly established University of Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana, when he was approached by the first Ghanaian surgeon, Charles Odamtten Easmon.

From 1967 to 1973, Dr. Evans-Anfom served as the Vice-Chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, where he first introduced the ceremony commonly known as “Matriculation” into the university entry ceremonies.

He has chaired a myriad of committees, boards and missions, both locally and on the international scene in Africa, Europe and North America.

He also served as the Commissioner of Education under the military governments of F.W.K Akuffo of the Supreme Military Council and later, Jerry John Rawlings led Provisional National Defence Council in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

He was a member of the Council of State in the Professor Hilla Limann's government from 1979 to 1981.

In 1996, he was adjudged the "Alumnus of the Year" by his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, UK, for "his major contribution to the development of medicine in Congo and to medical education in Ghana.