About the Author

Dr Mohan Ragbeer is a polymath, who recently retired from the practice of geriatrics, health promotion and disease prevention, following a career as a Professor of Pathology and medical educator at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. He graduated in 1957, MB, BS (Lond.) from UCWI, Jamaica, a London University College, and after three and a half years in Guiana and Britain, returned to Jamaica to join the newly independent UWI. He became immersed in educational issues: student evaluations and examinations, which he revised, and adapted the curriculum to the needs of Caribbean Health Ministries. In January 1969, he was appointed Associate Dean for Education and Student Affairs, and composed regulations for specialty training. In 1971, he became the first full-time Dean of the Faculty, reformed its structure and administration, started residency training (PGME), and Community Medicine (CM), supported by the Jamaica Government, Caribbean Health Ministers (now CARICOM Ministers of Health), HOPE Foundation, and PAHO. Kellogg Foundation and Pan-American Federation of Associations of Medical Schools (PAFAMS) supported CM. Despite scarce resources, he succeeded in launching specialty training and laying the basis for Faculty expansion to Trinidad, Barbados and the Antilles. The book relates the problems he and colleagues faced of newly self-governing, economically deprived islands caught up in the hangover from colonialism, as the Cold War raged worldwide, and inevitably involved them. The UWI was unique: a single university serving fourteen states-raised by the British as competing colonies-left to struggle, cooperate and relate with their University, individually and collectively. Schisms among the major partners, and ideological conflicts, threatened university programs in the seventies, but he and colleagues persisted, despite political turmoil, and established sound bases for reforms and innovation in medical education; the book describes the issues, events and personalities. In 1977, he joined McMaster University, retiring in 1996 to pursue a career in geriatrics, holistic primary care, and other interests: writing, photography, and history, publishing two books, "The Indelible Red Stain", on Guyana, (Amazon, 2011 & 2016, in 2 volumes, each 700 pages; and "India, under siege," the enemy within.(Amazon, 2015, 515pp.) He writes a current affairs column for Toronto's Indo-Caribbean World newspaper, and is working on an autobiography.