Avia Ustanny,outlook writer 
THE SOLE female recipient at the Medical Association of Jamaica annual awards in 2005 was Dr. Fay Whitbourne, the past director of the National Public Health Laboratory Services and the microbiologist who has been responsible for setting up several private laboratories in the island.
Dr. Whitbourne initiated the organisation of microbiology and other lab services at Central Medical, Caledonia Medical and Medical Associates Hospital Laboratories in the private sector.
As a director of the National Public Health Laboratory Services between 1990 and 1999, she installed management systems, computerised the labs, and arranged for retraining in quality assurance of all categories of staff at all public health offices in the island. She also guided the legislation of standards and guidelines for laboratory performance.
LABORATORY EXPANSION
Under her guidance, the national laboratory services system was extended to Montego Bay, Mandeville, Savanna-la-Mar, Port Antonio, May Pen and, in Kingston, to the Bustamante Hospital for Children and the National Chest Hospital.
It was also under her management that new buildings were constructed for the National Laboratory Services beside the blood bank on Slipe Pen Road.
Since October 2004, she has been chairperson of the board at Central Medical Laboratories, an organisation which she helped to develop.
Fay was the fifth of seven children born to Ditha and William Wood a housewife and public health officer. She grew up in Gayle, St. Mary and attended the Gayle government school until her parents, on the advice of her elementary school teacher, transferred her to Blake Preparatory School in Kingston.
There, she did as well as expected and won a scholarship to Immaculate Conception High School. Fay wanted to do medicine, but Immaculate did not have a science lab. After doing her higher Cambridge examinations, she attended extension school at St. George's College in order to get these done.
In 1957, Fay Withbourne was admitted to the University College of the West Indies to study medicine and was among a select few to graduate with an Honours MBBS degree.
Attraction grows
At university, Fay thought briefly of paediatrics, but an attraction to internal medicine grew. In her fourth year she was married to medical student Ken Whitbourne the union which was to produce three daughters, Kathryn, Sophia and Ingrid.
Fay Whitborune was six months pregnant when she sat her final examinations. Her marriage was to influence the direction of her career from then on.
"I began to look for an area in medicine which I could pursue and which would, at the same time allow me to look after my family," Dr. Whitbourne states.
She noted how stressful it was for residents to be cross matching blood for the hospitals at the same time that they were expected to carry out all other duties. She pursued postgraduate training in haematology, chemical pathology and microbiology a three-year programme which led to a diploma in laboratory medicine.
Dr. Whitbourne is one of only four pathologists trained under this programme in 1966 by the Government of Jamaica. Two migrated after completion.
Consultant clinical pathologist
She decided to remain here and has been the consultant clinical pathologist at Central Medical laboratory for the past 22 years. Shortly after graduation from the UWI, she was employed to the department of microbiology at the University Hospital and stayed there for five years, rising to the position of lecturer. The half decade was spent developing additional skills in virology, bacteriology and some immunology.
This was the basic knowledge which she used to develop several labarotaries outside of the university. After a short stint at the University of Technology (then CAST) she migrated with her family to live in Broward county in Florida in 1978. She immediately sat and passed the very difficult FLEX examination which allows doctors to work in 48 states of the union and went on to manage a medical office before returning to Jamaica in 1982.
Fay Whitbourne came back to work as a government microbiologist at Central Medical Labs and also spent time with Medical Associates as a clinical practitioner before accepting the post as director of the National Laboratory Services.
In the public sector, she was the microbiologist at the Government Medical Lab between 1982 and 1985.
After leaving the National Lab in 1999, she returned to private practice, developing an interest in menopause, which has lead to a national impact in this area. She was a founding member, and is the current president of the Jamaica Menopause Society.
Dr. Fay Whitbourne has certification as a menopause practitioner by the North American Menopause Society. She told Outlook that she feels really gratified that Jamaican society as a whole and men in particular have become more aware of menopause as a real condition and not just as something which is a figment of women's imagination.
'Bonus' daughters
After the tragic death of husband Kenneth Whitbourne in 1993, Dr. Fay Whitbourne has since remarried to professor Errol Morrison, university lecturer and current president and CEO of Blue Cross Jamaica. She has also acquired four 'bonus' daughters.
Dr. Whitbourne loves callisthenics, loves to read novels and medical material and also loves to travel. She wants to dedicate her immediate future to expanding public information on menopause.
Lady Cooke, the patron of the menopause society, she says, has challenged the group to reach out into rural Jamaica, and this is what she will be throwing a lot of effort into for the next
few years.
