Caribbean College of Surgeons

Kenneth A. Forde is a Barbadian. He defected to the United States after completing his secondary school education at the Combermere school, and I have been assured that attending that school had nothing to do with his defection. Indeed like so many West Indians who went on to University after completing their secondary education in the Caribbean, he excelled and graduated in 1959 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, where he received the Gold Medal for Excellence in Clinical Medicine and the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Award for Humanism from the College, and remains to this day a licensed lay reader in the Episcopal Church. He continued his training in New York and completed his diplomate of the American Board in Surgery in 1964. He did two years of Military service from 1964-66 and returned to New York where he has forged a stellar career in that Big Apple and is now the Jose M. Ferrer Professor of Surgery and Vice-Chairman for External Affairs in the Department of Surgery of the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Colurnbia Campus.

During his work, he captured or was captured by his dear wife Kay, a Vincentian, who has been his rudder and ensured among other things that he does not stray too far from his roots. Any time he strays she usually ensures that he is routed through St. Vincent, a routing shared by that great caribbean surgeon the late Sir Harry Annamunthodo.

During his career he helped pioneer the use of endoscopy as a diagnostic and surgical tool and was a member of one of the research teams that first recognized the increased prevalence of polyps in first-degree relatives of colon cancer patients and consequently recommended routine colonoscopy screenings for this high-risk group. He has won numerous awards for teaching, including being chosen Practitioner of the Year by the Society of **Practitioners and by the Department of Nursing at the Columbia Campus. In November 2004, he was awarded the Townsend Harris Medal from his alma mater, City College of New York for outstanding postgraduate achievement in his field. He has mentored more then 10 surgical trainees who have become academic colorectal surgeons and as a result, the Research Foundation of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons was instrumental in the establishment of the Kenneth A. Forde Professorship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at Columbia University. I think you will agree with me that it is an extraordinary distinction to be have a chair endowed in one’s name. He continues to inspire students and residents both at home and abroad as a visiting professor and has been an external examiner at both the undergraduate and post graduate examinations at the UWI. Those who have had the privilege of examining with him will attest to the fact that he could still earn the humanism award.

He was co-founder of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) and its second President, and is a Past Governor of the American College of Surgeons, Past President of the New York Surgical Society and of the New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Co-Editor-in-Chief of Surgical Endoscopy for 10 years, Dr. Forde has been active on the Editorial Boards of many journals and has over 180 publications etc.etc.

But we have only one evening so I cannot mention all of his academic achievements. Colleagues and guests I present to you an outstanding Caribbean scholar in the field of surgery and in particular colo-rectal and endoscopic surgery, for the Honorary Fellowship of the Caribbean College of Surgeons.

Dr. Kenneth Forde, BS; MD, FACS, Jose M. Ferrer Professor of Surgery, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, New York. A Surgeon from the Caribbean of international renown in gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgery

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