Professor Laurence Fraser Levy was the first neurosurgeon in Africa from Cape to Cairo.[1] He was Professor of Surgery and Anatomy at the University of Zimbabwe and managed to train about a dozen other neurosurgeons despite the resource poor setting and published more than 90 articles.[2] He was also awarded a gold medal in 2005 by the most popular international group of neurosurgeons.
By the time of his death, Levy was a trustee of the Epilepsy Support Foundation (ESF) an organisation he helped form in 1990. He had a very strong interest in epilepsy beginning in the fifties when he treated Nicholas George as his 7th epilepsy patient. At 12, George was chased from a government school because of seizures and when he met Levy, he asked about forming an association to support people with epilepsy. The dream was realised year later, on 17 April 1990 when the ESF was formed in Harare, Zimbabwe. George passed on in 1999, almost 8 years before Levy's own death. The 2 gentlemen are highly credited for building the ESF, which now runs a centre named after George with a clinic named after Levy in Harare. the Nicholas George Epilepsy Centre and the Professor Levy Epilepsy Clinic offer free treatment, rehabilitation, social services, education and training using charitable resources.