Richard Morais, Gleaner Writer

Dr Winston Davidson (centre), recipient of the Sir Philip Sherlock Award for 2008, with Dr Livi Forde (left), consultant physician and lecturer in clinical medicine and research at the University of the West Indies, Barbados campus, and Dr Henry Lowe, chairman, Environmental Health Foundation and chairman of Blue Cross of Jamaica. Davidson received his award at the 14th International Diabetes Conference at the SunSpree Resort, Montego Bay, St James, last Friday. - Photo by Richard Morais

WESTERN BUREAU:

Dr Winston Mendez Davidson, CD, JP, Jamaican pioneer in telemedicine, is the recipient of the Sir Philip Sherlock Award for 2008.

He was presented with the award at the 14th International Diabetes Conference at the SunSpree Resort, Montego Bay, last Friday.

The award, made for outstanding service to medical science, is a web-based electronic health-record system named UNIMEDICS for the management of chronic diseases and diabetes mellitus in particular.

It was developed in partnership with Davidson's research colleague and software consultant Sanjeev Kumar. It can be simplified as health care which uses the Internet to do a series of things normally needing face-to-face meetings. The service will be offered at an affordable rate and will also use voice for those who may not be conversant with the regularinput required for web-based communication.

We can discover too

In delivering the Sir Philip Sherlock distinguished lecture on UNIMEDICS, Davidson challenged his audience, "Don't be afraid of research, believing that discoveries have to come from elsewhere."

He said that there is a belief that academic 'intelligentsia' in the Caribbean does not have the capacity to think. He blasted corporate entities that do not fund initiatives locally, waiting instead for discoveries to come from up north.

Even with its challenges, Davidson emphasised the Carib-bean's high standard of health care. He also bemoaned Jamaica's failure to tap into the billion-dollar health tourism sector.

Davidson is adjunct professor of public health and health technology at the University of Technology. He is also a family physician in private practice. He is president of the Professional Societies of Jamaica and is chairman of the national task force, appointed by the prime minister, to undertake a compre-hensive review and evaluation of the regional health-service system in Jamaica. He has been married to Sonia, also a medical doctor, for 41 years, and has three daughters.