UK Guyanese achieves medical first
Stabroek News
May 24, 2003
Another Guyanese woman has scored a first in the United Kingdom. Samantha Zoisa Tross has become the first female of African ancestry to qualify as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the United Kingdom.
Tross, the second of four children of Sammy and Gwendolin Tross, is an old girl of St Gabriel Primary School. She then emigrated to England where she attended St Christopher School in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, Rodney School, Kirklington, Nottinghamshire and Matthew Boulton College, Birmingham, all private secondary schools. During her years at secondary school, Tross was the UK National Champion in long jump in 1982 for her age group and the champion girl in the same year at the Independent Schools Championship.
Tross is a graduate of the University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, considered one of the better medical schools in the UK, where she obtained her MBBS in 1992. She then obtained the FRCS (Ed) and FRCS (Lon) in September and October 1997. She then held a number of appointments in various capacities at the University College London hospitals, BUPA Wellesley Hospital, at St George's Healthcare Trust, and Mayday Healthcare Trust and the Royal London Hospital.
Since then she has served as Specialist Registrar in Orthopaedics at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, Princess Margaret Hospital Swindon, Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital, London. She is currently attached to the Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust in London as a Specialist Registrar.
Tross plans to proceed to the FRCS (Ortho) and to specialise in adult reconstruction surgery. She is involved in the mentorship programme set up for the Commission for Racial Equality and the Harringay Council. Ballroom dancing, scuba diving and circuit training are among her interests.
