Dermatology in Nigeria: evolution, establishment and current status

The history of dermatology in Nigeria can be summarized by listing the "first events and people" who played major roles. The first dermatologist to work in Nigeria was George HV Clarke in the mid 1950s. He was based in Lagos. Organized training/teaching and research in dermatology was first established at the University of Ibadan in the western region of Nigeria, in collaboration with the Institute of Dermatology, London. The first set of dermatologists from the Institute on secondment who established dermatology as a discipline at the University of Ibadan were Roger RM Harman as lecturer and GC Wells as the Visitor/supervising consultant in 1962. The first indigenous dermatologist was Anezi Okoro. The first female dermatologist was Yetunde M Olumide. The first (and still the only) Department of Dermatology was at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-ife in the western region of Nigeria, started by a German trained dermatologist: F. Soyinka, the junior brother of Nigeria's first (and only) Nobel Laureate. The first leprologist in Nigeria was George Stanley Browne, a medical missionary. He worked briefly as an associate lecturer (1963-65) under Professor Alexander Brown at the University of Ibadan. Most of the events in Nigeria's dermatology history as well as the greatest concentration of dermatologists in the country have been around the south-western part of the country: Lagos, Ibadan, and Ile-ife. The military coup and the political events that occurred thereafter had a great negative impact on the development/growth of dermatology in Nigeria. The documentation by Ryan as of 1990 indicates that many African countries still do not have a single trained dermatologist.