FROM LEFT ARE COTTERELL, JOHN, AND DISTANTEDISON, New Jersey:
THREE OF the 18 men and one woman licensed to perform transplant surgery in the United States are Jamaicans who, along with their colleagues, were honoured last week at the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network's fifth annual heritage awards dinner and show in Edison, New Jersey.
Dr. Adrian Howard Cotterell, a graduate of Priory High School in St. Andrew, is currently assistant professor of surgery, division of transplantation surgery at the Medical College of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. His father, Dr. Altman Hubert Cotterell, resides in Jamaica where he has retired from the position of senior medical officer at Kingston Public Hospital, but still works on the medical staff at Nuttall Hospital.
Dr. Dale Anthony Distant was born in Kingston, but emigrated to the United States at age seven. He attended New York City public schools, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Science from City College of New York, and studied medicine at State University of New York Health Science Center. At present, he serves as assistant professor of surgery at State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Dr. Devon G. John was born in Trinidad to a Jamaican mother, Millicent Christian John, and Trinidadian father, Peter John. After spending his youth in Brandon Hill, Clarendon, and marrying a Jamaican woman, he identifies strongly with this part of his heritage.
He is now the Director of Pancreas Transplantation and an assistant professor of surgery at the New York University Medical Center.
As transplant surgeons, these doctors perform operations on patients who are at death's door and only stand a chance of living if their vital organs, such as a heart or kidney, are replaced by donors.
