Dr Charles Egerton Denbow, CD, DM, FRCP, FACP, FACC, Professor in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona, died on February 10, 2009, aged 63.
Jamaican Governor General Sir Kenneth Hall had two reasons for conferring the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander (CD) on Professor Charles Egerton Denbow at an extraordinary ceremony on April 16 last year. First, Dr Denbow was respected in Caribbean academia and he richly deserved the national award for service and teaching in the field of medicine. The second reason was that he was dying and was not expected to survive to attend the grand ceremonial state investiture later in the year. The photograph of the frail professor supported on either side by Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Governor General Kenneth Hall tells as much about the high esteem in which he was held as about the malignant illness which finally took his life. The official citation for the award to him read in part:
Professor Denbow has made an outstanding contribution to the field of medicine and has offered distinguished service to this country as a professor of medicine. Throughout his career, he has devised creative solutions to promote medical research and improve the quality of patient care that we now offer in this country.
Charles Denbow has been described by his peers as “one of the greatest Caribbean cardiologists of our time” and has been credited with having “raised the standard of cardiovascular care to new heights by his devotion to his patients and the training of young West Indian doctors.” In particular, he concentrated on cardiovascular diseases that are important in the Caribbean and much of his research work centred on patient-focused clinical cardiology, emphasising therapeutic and diagnostic advances that affect the care of patients with cardiovascular diseases. His outstanding achievement was in pioneering Echocardio-graphy; Ambulatory Electrocardiography; Coronary Angiography, and Interventional Cardiology.
He made significant contributions to knowledge in his field through his publications which appeared in regional and highly-regarded, peer-reviewed international medical journals. He was in Georgetown on January 2, 2006 to launch one such publication − his technical medical manual, The Clinician’s Guide to the Cardiovascular Examination. He has been an active contributor to scientific meetings mainly in the Caribbean region but also in North America, Europe and Asia.
Appointed to the post of Professor in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona, with effect from October 11, 2000, Dr Denbow for many years had played a significant role as a clinician-teacher and administrator at the university, serving as the Faculty of Medical Sciences representative on the Mona Campus Committee for Graduate Studies and as the Academic Staff representative on the Appointments Committee. He was appointed Head of the Department of Medicine in 1998 and also held the position of Vice-Dean (Clinical Medicine), Chairman of the Faculty Sub-Committee on Graduate Studies and Chairman of the Admission Committee, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Mona.
Charles Denbow received his early education at the Comenius Moravian primary school in Queenstown, Georgetown, and entered what was then called the preparatory form in Queen’s College in 1955, a classmate of Professor Nigel Harris, the current UWI Vice-Chancellor. A member of Nobbs House, he won a string of prizes throughout his school days finally taking the Guyana Scholarship in 1964 with distinctions in Physics, Chemistry and Zoology at the GCE Advanced Level. An ardent college cricketer, described as “an opening bat of the slow order” because of his defensive style and disdain for high scores, he was appointed captain of the Northcote Cup eleven in 1963, nevertheless.
After teaching at Queen’s as a temporary junior science master for a year, he entered the Faculty of Medicine of the University of the West Indies, Mona, in 1965 as a pre-clinical student. On the basis of his performance at his pre-clinical examinations, he was selected to pursue an intercalated BSc course in Anatomy at St Thomas Hospital Medical School, University of London. He went on to obtain the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery with honours, winning the Clinical Medal for the Best Student. His entire undergraduate career was decorated with medals and prizes.
After his one-year internship and two years of internal medicine residency at the University Hospital of the West Indies, he went to the Royal Postgraduate School (Hammersmith Hospital) for further studies in internal medicine. He obtained the DM (Medicine) degree from UWI in 1976 and embarked on subspecialty studies in Cardiology at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, University of Minnesota. On his return to UWI, he was appointed lecturer in Medicine and Consultant Cardiologist.
Professor Denbow was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FRCP); Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP); Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC) and a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Cardiovascular Disease. He was a founding member of the Caribbean Cardiac Society; member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Black Cardiologists, Atlanta, Georgia; member of the board of the Heart Foundation of Jamaica and the Medical Council of Jamaica; and was Co-Chairman at the 11th Annual Scientific Session of the Association of Black Cardiologists held in Atlanta in 1998.
He held appointments as visiting professor in the section of Cardiology at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, and was also external examiner for the final MBBS examination at Guy’s, King’s, St Thomas’s Medical School at the University of London in June 1999 and external examiner in Internal Medicine at the University of Guyana Medical School.
The elder son of the late Dr Claude Denbow − a popular dental surgeon in the 1950s − and Kathryn née Griffith, Charles Denbow was born on September 30, 1945 in Georgetown. He married Marjorie, née Thompson, in 1977, also a medical doctor, who died in 2006 and is survived by their three children.
