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The First Faculty

The First Faculty

by Cecile Clayton and Henry Fraser

The Faculty of Medical Sciences at UWI was not only the first Faculty of the fledgling University College of the West Indies, in special relationship with the University of London. It was also the trailblazer for the University’s pursuit of excellence and provided the foundation on which its reputation has been built. The main achievements of the Faculty may be grouped in seven periods spanning the decades from 1948 to 2008, rather like the ‘seven ages of man’ in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

1948 – 1957
The Pioneering Years
The existence of a Faculty of Medicine has had a major impact on health care in Jamaica and the Caribbean. It provided many much-needed, well-trained doctors and a few specialists, including pioneers such as Kenneth Standard in Public Health, Keith McKenzie in Paediatrics, Professor Sir John Golding in Orthopaedics and Michael Woo Ming in Medical Education. The impact of the University Hospital and the research conducted by faculty such as Professors Kenneth Hill, Gerit Bras, Eric Cruickshank and others was phenomenal. And when a major polio epidemic hit Jamaica in the early fifties there was a rapid and successful intervention in the form of the Mona Rehabilitation Centre on the Mona Campus, in large measure due to the efforts of Professor John Golding. The reputation of The University of the West Indies as a responsive and valuable institution was thus firmly established.

1958 – 1967
Expansion and Consolidation
Student intake grew from 33 to 5555 and then to 110 by 1964. The Tropical Metabolism Research Unit was established and research conducted by the TMRU on malnutrition, veno-occlusive diseases, hypertension and diabetes earned The UWI a reputation in the UK and North America as a Medical School of importance. A Cancer Registry at Mona and the Tropical Research Viral Laboratory (later CAREC) in Trinidad were also initiated. During this period (in 1962) the University was given its own Charter and authority to grant degrees. Opportunities for postgraduate training were limited, however, and increasing numbers of graduates emigrated in search of postgraduate training. The St. Augustine Campus—formerly The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture—was established in 1960 and the Cave Hill Campus was founded in 1963.

1968 – 1977
Postgraduate Specialist Training and Expansion into the Eastern Caribbean
Formal specialist training was introduced, beginning at Mona in 1972 followed by Cave Hill in 1976. The opportunities provided for Clinical training in Barbados and in Trinidad were hugely influential in expanding medical professional staff and improving health care in the Eastern Caribbean. The curriculum underwent changes to reflect the new focus on the training of primary (‘first contact’) health care practitioners who could function in deep rural or poorly serviced areas which played a significant role in improving community health and remains to this day an important cornerstone of the Faculty’s curriculum. Thanks to funding from the Kellogg Foundation, a postgraduate Family Medicine programme was also started in 1974. The ‘Eastern Caribbean Scheme’ of operating satellite clinical electives in Barbados and Trinidad was also expanded in this year. It is worthy of note that a graduate of this period, Dr Kennedy Simmonds of St Kitts, became the first UWI graduate to be elected Prime Minister.

1978 – 1987
Emphasis on Outreach and Service to the Community
This was a difficult period for UWI as a whole and the Faculty of Medical Sciences in particular, as the institution experienced serious financial and human resource challenges.
There was a massive exodus of senior staff between 1976 and 1980 and it became difficult to recruit replacements. This, however, opened up opportunities for young graduates who were willing and able to take up posts in the Faculty. During this period the restructuring of the University—involving decentralisation and the devolution of responsibilities to the campuses—was undertaken under
Acting Vice Chancellor, the late Professor Leslie Robinson. Major strides were made in community health as the programmes begun by Professor Standard in the late sixties gained momentum. In 1984 an additional year of internship, of mandatory community service, was added to the training of Medical students. Professor Standard, together with Dr Owen Minott, conceived of the idea of incorporating drama in public health education and got the students to stage skits on various health issues within the communities. This programme was very well received and earned kudos for the University. It had the secondary benefit of sensitising students to the socio- cultural aspects of health care. Indeed, the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine received the most requests for electives by overseas students; and the programme was recognised by the WHO with the conferral of the Sir Morris Pate Gold Medal on Professor Standard.

1988 – 1997
Introduction of a second Medical School at Mount Hope in Trinidad
The Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex came into being. The new School offered training in Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing, in addition to Medicine. This marked a major step forward in promoting multi-disciplinary medical education and although over the years, there have been major problems in terms of budget responsibility and administration of the Complex, it remains an important Centre for training and research in the various medical sciences.

In 1992 the Chronic Disease Research Centre was developed on the Cave Hill Campus in response to the epidemic of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension in the Caribbean. The Centre later merged (in 2000) with the research centres at Mona to form the Tropical Medicine Research Institute (TMRI). The research conducted at the TMRI has had major impact throughout the region, particularly on the approach taken in addressing chronic diseases and child malnutrition. The Sickle Cell Unit of the TMRI has achieved the worldwide reputation of being the foremost research centre for this disease.

1998 – 2007
Introduction of the Clinical programme in the Bahamas; Accreditation by CAAM-HP
The Clinical Programme in the Bahamas emerged initially as a satellite of the Faculty at St. Augustine. The Programme was upgraded in 2007 to The UWI School for Clinical Medicine and Research, Bahamas, with the Government of The Bahamas committing itself to ongoing support of the programme.
A major milestone reached during this period, was the accreditation of The UWI Faculty of Medical Sciences (across the four centres) by the newly established Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Medicine and Other Health Professions (CAAM-HP). Prior to this, the Faculty relied on accreditation of its MBBS programme by the General Medical Council of the UK which imprimatur, however, ceased to be available to Medical Schools outside of the European Community after 2005.

2007 – 2008
Upgrading of the SCMR to full Faculty at Cave Hill

The opening of the full Faculty of Medical Sciences at Cave Hill, with the anticipated entry of first year Medical Sciences students in September 2008, is a significant milestone of achievement in this 60th Anniversary of the University. It symbolises its role in the social and economic development of Caribbean nations and the global reach of The University of the West Indies in its new Strategic Plan 2007-2012


Research groups at Mona and St. Augustine campuses have developed protocols for the rapid multiplication of anthurium varieties through tissue culture and have established a semi-commercial tissue culture laboratory at UWI, St. Augustine to support the industry. The laboratory allows the possibility of rapidly multiplying the varieties and supplying them to the growers at significantly lower cost. In addition, research at the Cave Hill and Mona campuses has led to the development of methods for managing the nematodes and bacterial blight disease, using chemical control strategies.


The St. Augustine campus has also embarked on cutting edge research in bioengineering novel anthurium colours and patterns. These novelties can considerably improve the price fetched at international markets and can hence augment the profitability of the industry, providing further competitive advantage to the region. Genetic and molecular biological investigations have led to the development of a bioengineering method that provides great opportunities for manipulating anthurium spathe colour, to produce novel blues, purples and yellows.


This success could not have been achieved without the innovation and collaboration of the largest supplier of the ornamental plant in Trinidad and Tobago, Kairi Blooms Ltd. Chris Avey, Kairi’s managing director, says that focus has now shifted to creating indigenous strains of anthuriums through cross-pollination and mass-producing them through tissue culture technology. The University’s partnership with the private sector is creating potential for the region’s anthurium industry to re-emerge as a potential global player. It is a significant precedent—the first time that collaboration between the University and the private sector has created sustainable livelihoods by leveraging our indigenous germplasm and locally developed technologies.


Still, the harsh reality is that overall Caribbean production has dropped to around 2 to 3 million cut-flowers while the Netherlands, the major producer of anthuriums, does 78 million cut-flowers per annum, Mauritius 10 million, Taiwan 10 million, Hawaii 7.5 million, Philippines 4 million, and Thailand 3 million. Therefore, the goal for the next five years is to increase production in the Caribbean tenfold to 20 million. Can The UWI leverage the region’s strengths to build a Caribbean anthurium industry capable of meeting the increasing worldwide demand for tropical ornamentals?


In a word, yes. In September 2006, The UWI in collaboration with a number of sponsors, hosted the first Caribbean anthurium industry development workshop at the St. Augustine campus. The objective of the workshop was to develop a strategy for the re-emergence of the Caribbean anthurium industry as a major global force, based on locally developed tropically adapted varieties. The workshop, which developed strategies for the micropropagation and distribution of the new varieties, identified a major role for The UWI in providing further research and development support towards improving Caribbean competitiveness. Having successfully provided the impetus necessary to resuscitate the anthurium industry with the first wave of technologies developed, The University of the West Indies is confident in facing the present challenge to develop a second wave of technologies needed for the region to become a global player in the industry.