Sir Clement Price Thomas KCVO MRCS LRCP FRCS FRCP[1] (22 November 1893 – 19 March 1973)[2] was a pioneering Welsh thoracic surgeon most famous for his 1951 operation on King George VI.

[3] Following a scholarship to Westminster Hospital Medical School, Price Thomas was posted to the Middle East at the onset of the First World War.

His reputation from his work on surgical techniques in pulmonary tuberculosis led to the decision that he would undertake the lung surgery on King George VI in 1951.

Although his ambition was initially to enter dental surgery, he was subsequently awarded a scholarship to study medicine at the Westminster Hospital Medical School.

[8] Price Thomas had been appointed Tudor Edwards' assistant surgeon in 1932 and they performed the first case of lobectomy of the lung for bronchiectasis the same year.

[6] Price Thomas was a notable medical educator and facilitated weekly surgical conferences at the Brompton and continuing small group teaching.

His Times obituary noted that despite his huge fame and international reputation "the more honours that befell him, the more did his innate modesty came to the fore".

[18] A series of X-rays were reviewed which, reported by Peter Kerley,[18] a Westminster Hospital radiologist, suggested a tumour, and after Sir Horace Evans consulted Price Thomas, a bronchoscopy was scheduled.

The bronchoscopy and biopsy were performed on 16 September, transported to the Brompton hospital by Price Thomas' son, Brian, and the result did confirmed a lung tumor.

[18] On Sunday morning, 23 September 1951, the operation on the king's lung was performed by Price Thomas and his assistants Charles Edwin Drew and Peter Jones in the Buhl Room of Buckingham Palace.

Even the changing the King's guard was switched to St James's palace to avoid disturbance outside the operating theatre, where it would have otherwise taken place.

Attempting to perform the surgery in their routine manner whereby the assistants sewed up the wound following removal of the tumour, Price Thomas is recalled to have remarked "I haven't stitched up a chest for 25 years and I'm not going to start practising today!

[21][22] Despite injury to the left recurrent laryngeal nerve and an effect on the king's voice, the cancerous lung was successfully removed.

His caricature in Ellis's Operations that made history, 1996, shows a suited Price Thomas with numerous cigarette stubs at his feet.

[21] In 1964, Price Thomas underwent a lobectomy for lung cancer, performed by the same surgeon (Charles Drew) who had assisted him in the King's operation in 1951.

In 1951, Price Thomas was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order after operating successfully on King George VI.

[29] The operating table is on display at Westminster Hospital, while Cyril F. Scurr donated the ECG machine to the British Oxygen Company Museum at the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain.

[18] Price Thomas will be remembered for the thoracotomy on King George VI,[6] which was re-enacted in Stephen Daldry's TV series The Crown in 2016.

The highly realistic and accurate model of the king complete with surgical incisions was donated to the Gordon Museum of Pathology as an educational aid.