His father was a deacon in the Baptist church and he would later attend the St. John’s School in Aroloya, Lagos State for his primary education in 1932. A bundle of intellectual gifts, he then proceeded to the Methodist Boys’ High School (MBHS) in 1945 after which he left for America as a beneficiary of the New York Phelps-Stokes Fund Scholarship for Medical Education. He had also passed the London Matriculation Examination in the same year leading the whole set in English, Geography, History, Chemistry and Biology.
In April 1950, he came first in his undergraduate class at the College of Liberal Arts in Howard University, Washington D.C, United States graduating summa cumlaude (with the highest honour). The $8,000 scholarship that he had won saw him through the medical school from 1950 to 1954 when he received his MD. In his senior year in the Howard Medical School, he worked as an intern at the University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor (1954-55). As an intern, he drank from Professor Edgar A. Kahn’s gourd of knowledge. By the end of the year, he had so much impressed his superiors that he was offered a residency position. And till 1960, he would remain a dutiful and intelligent student of Dr. Kahn who was the chief of neurosurgery.
According to Professor Kahn, Odeku was the very best of all the residents that he trained and he even co-authored a textbook of neurosurgery with him, Correlative Neurosurgery.
Fresh from training with a brain spewing off terabytes of vast medical knowledge, he packed his bags and headed for Nigeria and by October 1962, he was already at the University of Ibadan as a lecturer in neurosurgery where he started the first neurosurgical department in Nigeria. He became a Senior Lecturer in 1963 .
Fresh from training with a brain spewing off terabytes of vast medical knowledge, he packed his bags and headed for Nigeria and by October 1962, he was already at the University of Ibadan as a lecturer in neurosurgery where he started the first neurosurgical department in Nigeria. He became a Senior Lecturer in 1963 .
Odeku placed his vast and extremely-skillful experience at the disposal of the University. He was so passionate, devoted and committed (especially to his patients) that within a short time, Odeku had attained the status of a legend within the medical community By November 1965, he was already a full professor of surgery.
As a teacher, he was the dream come true of any medical student. His presentations were extremely explanatory, well-planned and just too clear. He ensured that he made them so simple that virtually anyone would understand in an instant -he was a gifted teacher, and his prowess of passing down knowledge was second to none. As a clinician, he broke down quickly all the essentials to arrive at a diagnosis, and like a magician, he made it all so simple -whether he was at an international medical conference or in an outpatient clinic full of patients.
As he was an outstanding teacher, he was also an excellent writer. He published not less than 100 scientific papers. He would send his earliest papers to local journals in a bid to spread the news of the new discipline of neurosurgery in Ibadan to all West Africans. He also published extensively in scientific journals abroad. He was even on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Nigerian Medical Association, African Journal of Medical Sciences, West African Medical Journal and the International Surgery Journal. Also, he was:
-Medical Officer, Lagos General Hospital, Federal Medical Service of Nigeria (August 1955- June 1956).
-Assistant General Surgery Resident, University of Michigan (1956).
-Neurosurgeon Resident (1957-1960), Junior Clinical Instructor, Senior Clinical Instructor (St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital, the Veterans Administration Hospital, Michigan & the Wayne County General Hospital, Eloise, Michigan).
-Research Training Fellow, Experimental Neurology, Neurosurgery Department, University of Michigan.
-Recipient, Relm Foundation Special Grant of $3,400. He used the funds to do his postgraduate study in neuropathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington DC (July 1960 to June 1961).
-Chief Resident, Paediatric Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Pennsylvania, USA.
A very lively, refreshingly motivatingly and entertaining speaker, he enchanted his audience as he travelled widely giving lectures and speeches. He was the World Health Organization Exchage Professor of Neurosurgery at the Department of Surgery, Universite Lovanium, Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo in April 1971. There, he also gave outstanding lecturers on different topics of neurosurgery in the developing nations of the world.
Beyond his impressive base of intimidating knowledge, it is very important to point out that Professor Odeku was an extremely humble man and a very humane doctor. At a height of six feet and with a most handsome countenance, he was packed with grace, elegance and disarming confidence. A highly-organized man with a very charming personality and full of humour, he was also very much into the reading and writing of poems. Some of his works of poetry include Twilight and Whispers from the Night (published in 1969).
In one of his poems, ”Beyond the Sea” (1955), he glowingly describes his hometown, Awe, which was a small, rural farming community in Oyo State:
As a teacher, he was the dream come true of any medical student. His presentations were extremely explanatory, well-planned and just too clear. He ensured that he made them so simple that virtually anyone would understand in an instant -he was a gifted teacher, and his prowess of passing down knowledge was second to none. As a clinician, he broke down quickly all the essentials to arrive at a diagnosis, and like a magician, he made it all so simple -whether he was at an international medical conference or in an outpatient clinic full of patients.
As he was an outstanding teacher, he was also an excellent writer. He published not less than 100 scientific papers. He would send his earliest papers to local journals in a bid to spread the news of the new discipline of neurosurgery in Ibadan to all West Africans. He also published extensively in scientific journals abroad. He was even on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Nigerian Medical Association, African Journal of Medical Sciences, West African Medical Journal and the International Surgery Journal. Also, he was:
-Medical Officer, Lagos General Hospital, Federal Medical Service of Nigeria (August 1955- June 1956).
-Assistant General Surgery Resident, University of Michigan (1956).
-Neurosurgeon Resident (1957-1960), Junior Clinical Instructor, Senior Clinical Instructor (St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital, the Veterans Administration Hospital, Michigan & the Wayne County General Hospital, Eloise, Michigan).
-Research Training Fellow, Experimental Neurology, Neurosurgery Department, University of Michigan.
-Recipient, Relm Foundation Special Grant of $3,400. He used the funds to do his postgraduate study in neuropathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington DC (July 1960 to June 1961).
-Chief Resident, Paediatric Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Pennsylvania, USA.
A very lively, refreshingly motivatingly and entertaining speaker, he enchanted his audience as he travelled widely giving lectures and speeches. He was the World Health Organization Exchage Professor of Neurosurgery at the Department of Surgery, Universite Lovanium, Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo in April 1971. There, he also gave outstanding lecturers on different topics of neurosurgery in the developing nations of the world.
Beyond his impressive base of intimidating knowledge, it is very important to point out that Professor Odeku was an extremely humble man and a very humane doctor. At a height of six feet and with a most handsome countenance, he was packed with grace, elegance and disarming confidence. A highly-organized man with a very charming personality and full of humour, he was also very much into the reading and writing of poems. Some of his works of poetry include Twilight and Whispers from the Night (published in 1969).
In one of his poems, ”Beyond the Sea” (1955), he glowingly describes his hometown, Awe, which was a small, rural farming community in Oyo State:
"Beyond the sea and far away
Is a little shelter
I call my home…
Where the natives track the sun
To their daily bread,
My life began, out of the tropic soil …
My life, my cradle, my home" (Twilight, 18)
A true trailblazer and global pioneer, it was his selflessness, commitment and patriotic zeal that opened the door for the field of neurosurgery to blossom, especially in Nigeria. Today, the E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan (Nigeria’s premier university) was named in his honour.
By 1973, he had worked so hard that it took a toll on his health and on the 20th of August 1974, he died from complications from diabetes mellitus. He died at the young age of 47.
Acknowledgement: Abiyamo, TUN Telev
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