Alumni profile: Thomas KC King
The New York-based former Professor of Clinical Medicine graduated from Edinburgh Medical School in 1959.
Edinburgh MBChB graduate Dr Thomas K.C. King has had a long and prolific medical career, which has taken him all over the world. He recently retired from his role as Professor of Clinical Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, where he had worked since the 1970s.
Edinburgh days
Although born and raised in Hong Kong, Thomas was drawn to the University of Edinburgh because of its international reputation for medicine.
He recalls the many outstanding lecturers he met during the mid 1950s. “Most notable were Professors Dunlop, Davidson, Donald, Romanes and Whitteridge, to name a few,” he says.
Following his graduation from the MBChB, Thomas spent five in training in both Belfast and London, before completing his MD in Edinburgh 1963.
Academic career
Thomas returned to Hong Kong in the late 1960s, where he was lecturer in the Department of Medicine at Hong Kong University, participating in initiating a new pulmonary division. In 1970, he was offered a faculty appointment at Cornell University Medical College in New York US in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, later becoming Professor of Clinical Medicine.
During his time at Cornell, Dr King trained hundreds of residents and fellows in the Medicine Intensive Care Unit, the Step-Down Unit and in outpatient practices. He taught the pulmonary physiology courses and instructed medical undergraduate students throughout their four years at Cornell.
He also made significant contributions to pulmonary research with studies providing insight on the basics principles of respiratory physiology and pathophysiology.
Dr King has returned to Edinburgh several times since his student days, his most recent visit being the 50th re-union of the class of 1959 in 2009. His advice to current students?
“You don’t know where you are unless you know where you have been”.