THE UWI'S Faculty of Medicine on Wednesday at the Mona Visitor's Lodge, launched the inaugural Kenneth Standard Distinguished Lecture series to mark Sir Kenneth's contribution to the development of public health and primary health care in the Caribbean.
The launch marked the start of the Faculty's 11th annual research conference which ends Friday.
Sir Kenneth was too ill to attend the function but his absence did not deter his medical colleagues, past students and friends from being lavish in their praises and admiration of the medical doctor and public health practitioner who spent nearly 40 years at the UWI's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (now Department of Community Health and Psychiatry). He rose through the academic ranks of that department, in only seven years, to become its head and professor and currently in retirement as Professor Emeritus.
Dr. Knox Hagley, a former head of that department, in presenting the citation to Sir Kenneth's daughter, Dr. Aileen Standard-Goldson, described Sir Kenneth as "a man ahead of his time in public health" and also as a "gentle giant in our midst...he is now an acclaimed public health hero".
Sir Kenneth earlier this year was named by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) as one of 11 public health heroes in the western hemisphere in the 20th century. This latest accolade was only one of many for the Barbadian school teacher who was among the first 33 students when the University College of the West Indies (now UWI) first opened its doors in 1948. Part of his vision was the introduction of community health aides, the Master of Public Health, public health training for medical undergraduate programmes to name only a few of his achievements.
The inaugural lecturer was Dr. Douglas Slater, Minister of Health, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, himself a former student of Sir Kenneth. In a very lengthy lecture recalling the history of public health and summarising the achievements of this branch of medicine, he said that it was to the credit of the effort of public health practitioners that communicable diseases such as poliomyelitis, smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, yaws, lice infestations, were now under control or eradicated in the region.
"In fact, some of the younger physicians don't even know about something like yaws," Dr. Slater said.
Public health efforts, he said, had increased life expectancy and presented the public with "quality- adjusted life years" but noted that it was ironic that perhaps the successes of public health in allowing people to live longer had contributed to the new public health challenges such as the chronic lifestyle diseases.
Caribbean citizens, he said, are less physically active and eating more fast foods, a combination which has contributed to the lifestyle diseases but said that again public health is responding with the tried and proven tools of the trade -- health education and promotion.
Dr. Slater also pointed to other public health challenges such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse and health financing in the face of rising expectations of a more savvy public. Policymakers, he said would have to rise to the financing challenge even while economies are contracting.
