History will be made in London today when Bernard Ribeiro, a Ghanaian consultant surgeon, assumes duty as president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

He is the first African to be elected president of the 260 year-old institution that acts as custodian of surgical standards in England and the Commonwealth.

Mr Ribeiro was elected in May this year for a three year term, and he will be assisted by two vice-presidents to oversee a council of 26 elected members who act as trustees of the college.

He was born in 1944 to Miguel and Matilda Ribeiro from Cape Coast and the family moved to London in 1952.

He attended the London University?s Middlesex Hospital Medical School and qualified as a doctor. He then changed his title of ?Dr? to ?Mr? by becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS). He is now with the Basildon University Hospital in Essex.

In 1974 Ribeiro came to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital to work with a consultant surgeon, Professor J. M. Kwashie Quartey and Mr Eddie Kofi Yeboah.

While he was the president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, 1999 to 2000, he led a group of British surgeons to Ghana and visited Parliament in session in Accra.

Earlier this month, Mr Ribeiro was among those honoured at the fifth Ghana professional achievement award held in London on July 2, attended by the Ghana High Commissioner, Mr Isaac Osei.