Panagodage Bertram Fernando Learning Management System Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, Doctor of Medicine Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians Diploma in Tropical Medicine&H Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is First Professor of Medicine Ceylon Medical College and Faculty of Medicine University of Colombo.
Education
Fernando was educated like Marcus Fernando (no relation) at Saint Benedict"s College, Colombo. He was awarded a Government scholarship to the Ceylon Medical College in 1918 and qualified with L.M.S. (Ceylon) in 1923. In 1930 he attended University College Hospital, London, Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery (1931) and obtaining Membership of the Royal College of Physicians in 1932 and the diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene.
Career
He was awarded an Doctor of Medicine in 1951, and elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1952, the first Ceylonese to be awarded that distinction. He returned to Sri Lanka to serve as visiting physician General Hospital, Colombo and visiting paediatrician at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children. In 1936 he was appointed the first professor of medicine at the Ceylon Medical College continuing as Professor of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine when the Medical College became part of the newly established University of Ceylon in 1942 till his retirement in 1959.
Professor Fernando in addition to his reputation as a clinician published research papers on childhood tuberculosis, ascariasis in children, nutritional disorders in childhood, rheumatic heart disease, liver diseases and coronary atherosclerosis and ischaemic heart disease in Ceylon.
He served as acting dean of the faculty of medicine and acting vice-chancellor of the University of Colombo. He was honorary secretary and treasurer of the Ceylon Branch of the British Medical Association, and President Ceylon Medical Association (later renamed Sri Lanka Medical Association) in 1953.