Dr Sandra Knight:

SO determined was Dr Sandra Knight that she was going to be a doctor, that by age three she was dissecting rats and lizards to study their anatomy.

At just 39, she has gone far beyond just fulfilling her childhood dreams. In the process of doing so, she has taken on several causes which have positively impacted the lives of many people. Still she says, there is much more to be accomplished.

“My greatest dream is to be able to affect the pathway that my people is on. I want to help us be what we can be,” she said

The statement is not just idle philosophical gibberish from the medical practitioner who is currently on a drive to get young girls to value themselves more. As the present chair of the National Family Planning Board, she feels she has a great platform to do just this.

In addition to holding this post, Dr Knight is a general and anti-ageing practitioner who does emergency duty at the Bustamante Hospital for Children where she worked for 10 years as a senior medical doctor before cutting back on her hours at the hospital. The doctor is still being rated by many for the bold move she took in breaking the silence on the high levels of child sexual abuse cases she saw coming to the hospital. Her exposé was carried in the Jamaica Observer and resulted in many people coming forward to speak about their own traumatic experiences.

“It was just terrible, I was getting sick of it, especially since my daughter was born, so that’s why I decided to talk about it,” she said.

Dr Knight is mother to seven-year-old “Tifany with one F”, as the mother-daughter team always tells people. Although she has many patients, children, she finds, are the best.

“I love children, and children are very appreciative when you make them better and once they are better, you immediately know,” she said with a smile.

She shivered as she recalled the first time she saw a child dead in a hospital bed in Jamaica. For her, it was her wake up call that medicine would require far more of her emotions than dissecting lizards elicited. But still she was not deterred in pursuing her career path, especially when she considered that her beloved grandfather had died from a heart attack.

“I was walking on the ward and there was this dead child on the bed and I just freaked out,” recounted Dr Knight, who was on her first internship experience in a Jamaican hospital and fresh from a six-year sabbatical in Cuba.

“I loved Cuba. It got me hooked on public health. I was also so amazed at how healthy and happy the people were,” she gushed.

Dr Knight’s love affair with Cuba didn’t stop when she came back to Jamaica. She, along with a colleague, started the Jamaica Cuban Medical Association, where they collaborated with Cuba to induct students on holidays from that country to The University of the West Indies, Mona school system. They also taught them the English jargon for medical terms and introduced them to the Jamaica culture.

While the programme was very successful, Dr Knight had less time to give to it when she became a board member for the Medical Association of Jamaica. She was also a medical officer of health for St Catherine, an acting director in the Ministry of Health, and the medical director of the UWI Medical Centre on campus, in addition to being the founding member of the Jamaica Midlife Health Society.

A huge turning point in her life, she said, was when her baby sister was diagnosed with leukaemia.

“I was in med school and after being given a prognosis of two months she survived for two years! I will not forget how dismissed I felt by her doctors because it was as if, if she is going to die, why bother? That made me vow to never, ever allow any of my patients to feel that way and every single patient that comes through my office door becomes the most important person to me while they are sitting in that chair. I am a huge advocate of quality patient care. I know what it is like to lose a loved one and I also know what it is like to have also been very sick.”

The walls of her cosy office at the Liguanea Post Mall bear testimony to her vast accomplishments over the years. She possesses a first degree in biology, zoology and biochemistry and a master’s in public health, both from UWI. She also worked for several years at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and was a Fulbright scholar to Emory University where she focused on public health financing and chronic disease and cancer management.

Dr Knight is currently on the board of the Fulbright Academy of Science and Technology. This is an international organisation that allows members to do international consultancies as Fulbrighters. One of her most recent consultancies was in Dubai where she and five colleagues toured the city and offered their expertise on how the country could better foster sustainable development.

“Dubai is a world not of this world,” the doctor beamed as she shamelessly shared how she unsuccessfully tried to scrape the gold off the wall of the palace belonging to the founder of the United Arabs Emirates because she was so enamoured with its classy and expensive decor.

Dr Knight has always loved travelling. At 15 and just graduated from Knox College in Manchester, she convinced her father, a pastor, and her mother to let her go to South America.

“Don’t ask how I got my parents to do it, I organised this letter and it was days and days of convincing,” said the third of five girls for her parents, who said she was tired of school although she had accomplished many things there, including being the head girl and student council president. She spent more than a year teaching english in Colombia and Venezuela before eventually coming back to Jamaica to study at UWI.

“My mom and dad are my best friends, in addition to my sisters,” she said. “I call them daily or they call me and whenever I go through difficult times they are there for me. My mother seems to have this unconditional love for us and my dad is just my rock and gives the greatest advice.”

Despite being offered many opportunities to work abroad, the doctor was adamant that she has no inclination to leave her beloved country. She just hopes that she can make a meaningful contribution, because despite her immense success, she still doesn’t feel she has done enough; at least, “not yet”.