Senior lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Radiology, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at The University of the West Indies,(UWI) Mona and consultant general surgeon at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) Dr. Joseph Plummer, has been selected as one of twelve International Guest Scholars for 2016 by the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons(ACS).

  The scholarship attracts worldwide applicants and is awarded to “early career surgeons” who have demonstrated a strong commitment to teaching and/or research. Successful applicants participate in the College’s Annual Clinical Congress at which time scholarship awardees are publicly recognized. A stipend of $10,000 US is granted to support attendance at the Congress as well as visits to selected North American medical centres and clinics. This is the second time in its 47 year history that this award comes to the Department of Surgery at The UWI, Mona. Cuban Surgeons in 1998 and 2003 have been the   other Caribbean awardees.

Joseph Plummer was appointed Consultant Surgeon at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Mona, in 2003. He is a respected academic whose research interest has been on colonic surgery, particularly minimal access procedures. His publications on the  removal of the gallbladder using minimally invasive surgery ( laparoscopic cholecystectomy) in sickle cell disease, has opened eyes to the challenges of laparoscopic surgery in these high risk patients. 

Dr. Plummer’s received the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons fellowship in 2010 and visited the Mayo and Cleveland Clinics. He is the recipient of The UWI, Mona Principal’s Research Initiative Award for 2009 which was used to set up an island wide colon cancer registry, now in use for three years.

Dr. Plummer intends to use the ACS Guest Scholarship award to improve his expertise in diagnostic and therapeutic gastrointestinal endoscopy-  a procedure that allows a doctor to look at the inside lining of the esophagus ,  stomach, and the first part of the small intestine (duodenum) using a thin, flexible viewing tool called an endoscope.