Official Journal Of The Trinidad & Tobago Medical - the Trinidad and ...

Incoming President’s Address
Dr. George Chamely
We are indeed in exciting times! To be given the opportunity
to lead this august body during this period, I consider an honour
and a privilege. To be elected to follow in the footsteps of a
President whom we all recognize as one of the best this
Association has ever seen, is a challenging one. Suffice to say,
Dr. Juman’s achievements over the last year speak for themselves.
Our Association, since its inception, has served to promote, and
disseminate medical information to its membership and the
profession in general. This has been done primarily by the
holding of monthly branch meetings and the hosting of an
Annual Medical Research Conference; as well as the publication
of our Caribbean Medical Journal. As a result of this emphasis
on education, and with the advent of mandatory Continuing
Medical Education in this country, our Association is well
positioned, with the provisional accreditation granted to us by
the American Academy of Continuing Medical Education, to
be the lead vehicle in CME provision. It is our aim to expand
our delivery of this education thrust by use of our website, in
keeping with the information technology age which is all upon
us.
We intend to continue to challenge our profession to embrace
the best practice standards set by our peers in the international
arena. We must strive towards adopting current trends in evidence
based medicine as our gold standard of care for our patients.
We have already begun this initiative by facilitating the John
Hopkins Cardiology Team and in due course, their Diabetes
Caribbean Medical Journal
Team, in the drive to expose our physicians to current best
practice management.
Education aside, we started in 2009 an outreach programme to
improve the image of the profession in the local community.
This we intend to expand and continue in 2010. Internationally,
we have already pledged $20,000 to the Haiti Relief Fund
through the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society. Further,
we have a volunteer team of 21 local doctors who stand ready
to serve in Haiti when called upon by our Chief Medical Officer.
We see the Association as the unifying body within all factions
of the profession. It is our intention to continue to work with
the Ministry of Health to improve health care delivery to the
citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. Despite the regrettable absence
of our Minister of Health, we would like to impress upon him
that our Association’s wealth of knowledge extends beyond the
boundaries of Medicine to include law, medical ethics, resource
management and health care delivery. Please feel free, Mr.
Minister, to approach us, not only in times of crisis. Our mutual
interest is in the provision of the best health service to this
country. I would like to close with a message to my colleagues,
let us in turn remember why we became doctors in the first
place. In accepting this profession and taking the Hippocratic
Oath, we became servants to our patients – let us always serve
with compassion and care.
Thank you.
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