The world is a much bet­ter place thanks to the de­ci­sion made by David Pi­cou more than sev­en decades ago to ho­n­our the wish­es of his par­ents and study med­i­cine.

Al­though he had his heart set on a very dif­fer­ent pro­fes­sion­al path, he en­tered the Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of the West In­dies, tak­ing the first step in­to an il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer in med­ical re­search that led to ground­break­ing de­vel­op­ments in the treat­ment of in­fant mal­nu­tri­tion and oth­er ac­com­plish­ments.

The renowned PhD sci­en­tist, who died over the week­end at age 97, is best known for his pi­o­neer­ing re­search as di­rec­tor of the Trop­i­cal Me­tab­o­lism Re­search Unit at UWI, Ja­maica, that rev­o­lu­tionised the treat­ment of child­hood mal­nu­tri­tion.

Pro­fes­sor Pi­cou de­vel­oped meth­ods to mea­sure body com­po­si­tion, un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics of pro­tein and car­bo­hy­drate me­tab­o­lism in the hu­man body and high­light the crit­i­cal func­tion­al role played by the colonic mi­cro­bio­me in main­tain­ing ni­tro­gen bal­ance. This led to the de­vel­op­ment of life-sav­ing treat­ment for se­vere­ly mal­nour­ished chil­dren.

Those meth­ods, first im­ple­ment­ed here in the Caribbean, and then en­dorsed by the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) and World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), have been adopt­ed glob­al­ly, sav­ing mil­lions of lives.

That alone was a re­mark­able ac­com­plish­ment but Pro­fes­sor Pi­cou didn’t stop there.

He was a dri­ving force be­hind the es­tab­lish­ment of one of this coun­try’s ma­jor health in­sti­tu­tions, serv­ing as the Mt Hope Med­ical Com­plex Task Force chair­man from 1978 to 1987.

He al­so ded­i­cat­ed a con­sid­er­able por­tion of his ca­reer to ed­u­ca­tion and as the first Pro­fes­sor of Ex­per­i­men­tal Med­i­cine at UWI, paved the way for clin­i­cal re­search to be­come in­sti­tu­tion­alised in the Caribbean.

That is one of the most en­dur­ing as­pects of his lega­cy, as he con­stant­ly shone a spot­light on med­ical pi­o­neers and re­searchers, past and present, in ad­di­tion to con­tribut­ing to the de­vel­op­ment of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of physi­cians and sci­en­tists in T&T and through­out the Caribbean

Pro­fes­sor Pi­cou’s con­tri­bu­tions to the field of ex­per­i­men­tal med­i­cine earned him nu­mer­ous ac­co­lades and awards and he was recog­nised around the world as a true vi­sion­ary in med­i­cine.

But rather than bask­ing in that spot­light, he reg­u­lar­ly lob­bied for the work of oth­er Caribbean pi­o­neers to be recog­nised.

A few years ago, when he de­liv­ered a pub­lic lec­ture in Port-of-Spain, Pro­fes­sor Pi­cou fo­cused on the achieve­ments of oth­er T&T re­searchers, in­clud­ing Pro­fes­sor Zu­lai­ka Ali, the pae­di­a­tri­cian, neona­tol­o­gist and UWI pro­fes­sor who spear­head­ed a se­ries of ini­tia­tives de­signed to im­prove health­care.

At this time, when much of the at­ten­tion is on re­cent in­fant deaths at the Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit (NICU) of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, it is im­por­tant to recog­nise the valu­able con­tri­bu­tion made by Pro­fes­sor Ali, who set up and head­ed the first neona­tal care unit in T&T.

There are many oth­ers, in­clud­ing Pro­fes­sor Courte­nay Bartholomew, who di­ag­nosed the first cas­es of Aids in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean; sur­geon Joseph Hen­ry Pierre, who was re­spon­si­ble for set­ting up lung surgery at Cau­ra Chest Hos­pi­tal; and bac­te­ri­ol­o­gist Joseph Lennox Pawan, known for his work on ra­bies that led to world-al­ter­ing med­ical ad­vances.

Al­though pub­lic opin­ion of the lo­cal health sys­tem might not be favourable at present, it is im­por­tant to cel­e­brate the in­spi­ra­tional life of Pro­fes­sor Pi­cou and oth­ers who have con­tributed to med­ical ad­vance­ments lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Their pos­i­tive im­pact on health­care and the qual­i­ty of life must nev­er be for­got­ten.