DR Trevor Dixon, founder and CEO of Jamaicans Abroad Helping Jamaicans At Home (JAHJAH) Foundation, on Emancipation Day received the President’s Award of Excellence from the National Medical Association (NMA).

The award — presented to Dr Dixon at the NMA’s annual ball as part of the its Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly in New Orleans, Los Angeles — was for his work in emergency medicine and humanitarian efforts through JAHJAH Foundation.

Dr Dixon, who was born in Christiana, Manchester, Jamaica and attended Zorn Moravian Church before migrating to Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 10 is currently an attending physician at Jacobi Medical Centre & North Central Bronx Hospital, director of emergency ultrasound, and assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also a registered diagnostic medical sonographer and has approximately 28 years’ experience in diagnostic medical ultrasounds.

In 2007 he started his journey in giving back to Jamaica when he held the first Emergency Ultrasound Conference at Kingston Public Hospital. He founded the Jamaicans Abroad Helping Jamaicans At Home Foundation, a registered non-profit in New Jersey since 2011 and in Jamaica since 2014.

The foundation, which was conceptualised while Dr Dixon worked at Newark Beth Israel Medical Centre in New Jersey, has blossomed since he joined Jacobi Medical Centre & North Central Bronx Hospital Emergency Department.

Jacobi has been instrumental in providing support to JAHJAH Foundation for its ultrasound initiatives. Physicians from Jacobi assist in presenting lectures for the two-day Annual Emergency Point of Care Ultrasound and Critical Care Workshop for doctors from public hospitals across the island during its annual mission trip, when Dr Dixon leads a team of over 40 medical professionals from the United States to Jamaica where volunteers carry out health fairs in schools and communities over a one-week period.

The team at Jacobi also collaborates and partners with JAHJAH Foundation on the Jamaica Hand-held Ultrasound Project. Hand-held ultrasound devices are a new and advanced type of portable ultrasound technology which has increased the ultrasound’s global reach. This technology is an alternative to the exponentially more costly and bulkier-sized traditional machines. Due to the portability, the new hand-held ultrasound technology makes it feasible for the clinician at the bedside to have access to the rapid diagnostics that ultrasounds provide.

Further, Dr Dixon enjoys giving back through charity and the sharing of knowledge with his homeland, and maintains that, “Jamaica holds a special place in my heart and therefore I focus my initiatives on bettering the lives of the underserved citizens of this beautiful island.”