On September 14-15, 2022, Aljay Pierre, MD, director of health services for Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine (Ross Vet), joined global health professionals at the Caribbean Health Summit hosted in Kingston, Jamaica by the Heart Institute of the Caribbean and Make Well Foundation. The two-day summit welcomed healthcare leaders from over 10 Caribbean countries and prominent guests, including Prof. Michelle Albert, president of the American Heart Association and Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, assistant director general of the World Health Organization.
Dr. Pierre joined Ross Vet in February 2020. Though he was born in New York, his families were originally from St. Lucia and Dominica and moved back to the region when he was a child. He established his career as a medical doctor in Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, and finally Saint Kitts. Along with his role at Ross Vet, he also serves the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis as vice president of the government’s medical and dental association. “I have always had a passion for issues of public health,” said Dr. Pierre. “My career has been in the public domain in some form, working through several countries and being in the media supporting health advocacy and patient education. My career has given me the perspective on what well-managed partnership between healthcare and government should look like.”
2022 CARIBBEAN SUMMIT
The 2022 health summit is an opportunity to co-create a more universal, accessible, and resilient healthcare system and comprehensively review the current state of healthcare in the Caribbean. Through lectures, panels, and other presentations, leaders proposed ways to innovate, redesign and reposition the healthcare system post-pandemic to deliver more value to citizens. Dr. Pierre joined other panelists during a presentation called Relationships Between Healthcare Workforce and Outcomes.
“I feel privileged to be given this opportunity and be present with movers and shakers in healthcare. I also feel privileged for the place I am in my career again. I work for a fantastic organization in Adtalem Global Education that is delivering on something of such tremendous value to humanity in helping build the next generation of healthcare workers. To be part of that is phenomenal, and to be able to use that to speak to the future of properly managed healthcare in the Caribbean is critical.”
In addition to talking about Adtalem’s mission, Dr. Pierre presented on other important topics like mental health challenges facing healthcare workers, veterinarian inclusion in disaster response, and adopting One Health ideologies in training the future workforce. “Key healthcare leaders that are part of the summit are individuals who have the capacity to implement effective and positive change,” said Dr. Pierre. “This will produce actionable insights that will be presented and pushed forward as a white paper and while the summit is for the Caribbean, it is part of a global community. How we redefine healthcare and build more resilient health care systems here post-COVID is something worth highlighting for other global communities.”
