OUR OUTLOOK magazine on Sunday featured Jamaican-born medical scientist Dr. Kathi-Ann Joseph, who at 33 is already an accomplished breast cancer surgeon and researcher in the United States. This young woman is Assistant Professor of Surgery at Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC) in New York, Director of Breast Cancer Surgical Oncology at CUMC, and Director of the Breast Service at St. Barnabas hospital in the Bronx.
While Dr. Joseph was raised and educated in the United States, the larger portion of those educated in Jamaica have migrated to foreign shores in search of better opportunities and rewards for the use of the skills they acquired here. The estimate is as high as 75 per cent of tertiary graduates. Many of these persons are distinguished researchers and innovators in a variety of fields.
Among the hottest and most prestigious fields of medical scientific research is the search for a cancer cure, as is the search for an AIDS vaccine. Cancer research is Dr. Joseph's field and last May she was the recipient of the prestigious Breast Cancer Alliance Joanne and Michael Masin Fellowship for young investigators for 2003-2005. The fellowship will allow her to continue exciting experimental work with an anti-tumour molecule which has not shown any toxic side effects so far.
Like most Jamaicans abroad, Dr. Joseph is more than willing to collaborate with professionals in her field here. As a country we have spoken a great deal about tapping into the Diaspora for development assistance at home. These highly skilled and productive persons exercising their talents in First World facilities are not going to return home to beat about here. But we can tap into their skills and knowledge where they are. Indeed, these accomplished daughters and sons are far more useful to their native land where they are abroad.
As we have pointed out already in this space, the willingness of Jamaicans of the Diaspora to help out at home is one of our greatest assets in an increasingly knowledge-based economy. Every effort should now be made by the State, academia and private enterprises to create mechanisms by which linkages can be made and knowledge and skills transfer take place.
One of the universities, the UWI, will be profiling its research over two 'Research Days' next week (Thursday and Friday, January 29 & 30). While we celebrate excellent work done locally, let us make every effort to link to the research and development being done abroad by our own Jamaicans much of which, like cancer research, is of immediate relevance to us.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
