Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

115 THEODOSIUS POON-KING (1928- ) T heodosius Poon-King is credited for his groundbreaking work on diabetes, the eradication of acute nephritis and the reduction of the high incidence of rheumatic fever in Trinidad and Tobago. He attended Biche Canadian Mission School and Arouca Boys’ RC School and then St. Mary’s College, where he excelled in languages and history.  At the University College Dublin he graduated with first-class honours in 1953, winning three gold medals. He then did postgraduate training in cardiology at Harvard Medical School, working with the research group in theArteriosclerosis Unit of the Massachusetts General Hospital that identified four new risk factors for coronary heart disease. He continued his postgraduate training in endocrinology as House Physician at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London where he developed a passion for research. In 1958, he took up the post of Specialist Physician at the San Fernando General Hospital.  He discovered that scorpion stings caused inflammation of the heart muscle and published the report in the British Medical Journal.  In 1960, he undertook an extensive study on diabetes in Trinidad. His findings were reported in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, in 1968. He established the Streptococcal Disease Unit at the San Fernando General Hospital in 1966 and with his co-researchers discovered four new types of streptococci during epidemics from 1965 to 1971. He also studied yellow fever and identified the first person with the virus in an outbreak in 1977. • 1975 Chaconia Medal Gold