Mr. President, Members of Council, Honorary Fellows, Fellows, Margaret and other distinguished guests, it is my honour to have been invited to give this citation for Peter. When I was invited to do this the immediate past President indicated that I had the opportunity to repay the compliments, for Peter gave a similar citation for me a few years ago. On deep reflection I promised myself not to make any misrepresentations of the kind he may have made about me on that occasion.

Given the name ‘Skinny’ when he first entered the University at Mona, he no longer merits that nick-name for in spite of a frenetic output, metabolically active inputs have become part of his legend. He was also called PR by some and I am assured that this was a simple light-hearted clinical reference to his initials and it had no other sociological implication. For the benefit of his recent acquaintances, he was once known to be physically energetic; and was reputed to have speed and agility as a hurdler at school, a skill which he states he has not had to use on or off the track since leaving school; I have never insisted on proof. He has pursued various other activities in a very energetic, some would say frenetic manner, this includes bird hunting. He insists on calling it bird shooting but I believe the term hunting is the more accurate term. Another less well heralded pursuit was soccer and in order to deflect any lack of success at that activity he blames the game for his eventual knee replacement and insists that no other activity involving the use of his knees had anything to do with it.

Some of his energy has been given over to academia; I am informed that he topped his class at Jamaica College, got admitted to the pre-medical class at the then UCWI and went on to graduate on time in 1964. After his internship he went off to New York with his late wife to learn our noble craft of surgery, a craft he has now sworn to forsake for more agricultural pursuits such as golf. As some of you know he has been into agricultural pursuits before as a kind of gentleman farmer, which in reality was an opportunity for some curry goat cricket. Speaking of cricket he has very strong views on West Indies cricket and some of the players and assorted characters associated with it. Before embarking on any discussion on that matter with him, I suggest you take liquid medication of any colour or label.

Having survived Harlem and Montefiore hospital surviving him, he returned to Jamaica at Mona in 1972 with some considerable experience in trauma, bums and some kidney transplant work under his belt. All of these would come in handy but he soon found out that he had to deal with a wider range of pathology. That is where I first came across Fletcher as he asked a little help in dealing with the portal vein during his first Whipple’ s procedure. Before long I thought he needed some real responsibilities, so I got him to take over being secretary to the Association of Surgeon’s in Jamaica where I believe he served with some distinction both as secretary and president. He has achieved some notoriety as a surgeon for many of the persons who have attempted to run Jamaica have elicited his help and he left most of them with their bodies intact, some were even repaired. His juniors without any visible marks of torture have described him as highly competent and skillful, fearing no surgical challenge, with technical skill and judgement in emergencies that was superb, and decisions that more often than not proved to be sound. He also published enough to advance up the academic ladder to the rank of Professor in 1991.

Although he professed to abhor writing and administration he plunged headlong into them, and even continued the hated task after reaching the retirement age. In fact he recently gave up the chairmanship of the University Hospital board citing the politicians and their sundry hangers on for failure to move his cherished causes sufficiently in the right direction, He was head of the department of surgery at Mona, presiding over the reorganization of the University departments which involved the amalgamation of several departments into an apparently smoothly functioning mega department of Surgery, its subspecialties, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, and Radiology. After leaving that headship he went on to be the Medical director at the University hospital and continued to lurk in that vicinity after retirement as chairman of the board. As if these were not enough of the professed hated administration he was instrumental in the development of the Bum Programme at the University Hospital and oversaw its management Committee for over 10 years. He also played a major role in the construction and management of the Tony Thwaites Private Wing at that Hospital.

Some years ago he helped to organize the overseas meeting of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in Jamaica; for that successful organizing effort, he and Prof Carpenter were awarded Honorary Fellowships of that College, it was not as widely rumoured for their ability to keep up with the liquidity of the Scots. He was also an active fellow in the American College of Surgeons, helping to establish the Jamaican chapter, and was for a time a governor of that College. The other responsibilities he undertook involved being a captain in the reserves of the Jamaica Defence Force and his reputation for these military pursuits brought him additional administrative responsibilities in University security and heading his gun club. So much for the hated administration.

Within the University he plunged headlong into trying to simplify the examination system mainly by trying to reduce the paper trail, some thought is was the fingerprints. His best known innovation in the exams was the introduction the F factor, which the rest of us preferred to call the Fletcher factor in case there was any misunderstanding about what came under the letter F; suffice it to say it was not to fail any presentable female student. He boasted when he got rid of reading the numbers out at the final examiner’s meeting, a sort of final surgical cut. But these were not his only critical achievements in examining, for faced with Hurricane Gilbert coming, he was determined not to give up his examiner‘s duties in Trinidad, and departed Jamaica expressing his great confidence in his family and the department to cope without him in any disaster. I witnessed how he marshalled his resources from the safety of Trinidad and shortly after the hurricane he was on a private plane organised for some stranded Jamaican businessmen. Determined that Gilbert should not prevail, the examination at Mona was organized in the ruins and when Allan Butler and myself journeyed up a few days later he had already found the only open watering hole in Kingston, where we could be suitably comforted with cold refreshment.

This brings me to the input side of his metabolic ledger for none of the hated administrative duties outlined above could be carried out without refreshing his colleagues and himself. With typical–military planning he went through a course in Chinese cooking and is now to be seen in front of the food channel finding news ways in which to expand the waistlines of his constant guests. His dedication to entertaining the department and his friends has had its downside with the occasional tangle with uric acid, but he keeps his physician close at hand to ameliorate these inconveniences, thus grudgingly acknowledging that there are a few things that physicians can do right.

Mr. President, I present to you Peter Raymond Fletcher as a worthy recipient of the Honorary Fellowship of this College having had a distinguished career in the cutting arts, as a teacher at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as a self-proclaimed reluctant albeit distinguished administrator in many fields of endeavour; enthusiastic sportsman; unrepentant host, and a most loyal friend and advisor to many members of this college.