The Tribune

DR Robin Roberts is another of the fathers who was recently honoured by Mount Tabor Full Gospel Church, in the run-up to the 40th Anniversary of Independence and whom The Tribune is featuring as part of its ongoing anniversary coverage.

Dr Robin Roberts returned to the PMH in 1980 as a junior physician.

After two years of practice, noting there were no urological surgeons in The Bahamas, he undertook a postgraduate training in urology and a Fellowship in Kidney Transplantation and returned as the first certified urologist practicing in the Bahamas, in 1987.

After 30 years in the government service Dr Roberts has been a pioneer in all aspects of healthcare in the Bahamas. Currently he is the Director of the University of the West Indies School of Clinical Medicine and Research, The Bahamas, Consultant Urologist and Immediate past Chief of Services of the Department of Surgery; he has served as the President of the Medical Association of the Bahamas, Bahamas Family Planning and Commonwealth of the Bahamas Academy of Medical Sciences.

He advanced and established urological surgery as a distinct and credible service in the Bahamas. He performed the first kidney transplant in the Bahamas in 1997. He served as the Chairman of the Department of Surgery for ten years.

Dr Roberts has pioneered the advance of medical education in the Bahamas, including establishing the relationship with the PMH and the University of Miami Medical Library in 1988.

Dr Roberts established the Office of Continuing Medical education at the PMH and was its first Director. Through the CME Office, Dr Roberts was instrumental in establishing the PMH as a formal teaching hospital for the University of the West Indies.

In so doing, the PMH was accredited for teaching medical students in the last two years of their five-year medical undergraduate education. In its first graduating year in 1999, 20% of the 14 medical graduates were Bahamian. By 2009, it had been transformed to a predominantly Bahamian-based programme: of the 21 graduating students, 85% were Bahaman nationals. As of June 2012, there have been 247 medical students graduating successfully with their medical degrees, Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB,BS) of which 77% are Bahamian nationals.

Dr Roberts is recognised as one of the leading Urologist in the Caribbean.

He has presented and published numerous papers through the region and internationally.

He has brought the terms prostate gland and prostate cancer to a wider audience in the Bahamas. He has lectured at every male organisation in the Bahamas, almost every church in Nassau, written countless newspaper articles, and appeared regularly on TV and Radio programmes.

One of his most treasured accomplishments was the establishment of the first national health promotion programme in the Bahamas, Here’s to Your Health Bahamas, in 1993. As President of the Medical Association of the Bahamas, he conceived and directed this national initiative with the Ministry of Health.

On November 14, 2012, the doctor celebrated 31 years of marriage to Carolyn Roberts, Chief Clinical Psychologist and Head of the Department of Psychology at the Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre.

They have two children, Simeon and Simone.

He also witnessed the birth of his first grandchild, Nicholas.

He is the son of late Anthony Cyril Rupert Roberts and Sarah Jane Fox – affectionately known as Queenie, who recently celebrated her 91st birthday.