DR ROMAYNE EDWARDS: STEPPING into her DESTINY
ROMAYNE EDWARDS was reading at the age of four and writing ‘join-up’ by the time she went to kindergarten. She was also the ‘little performer’, reciting poems and singing at gospel concerts around the country with her beloved granddad, who was a deacon at the Assemblies of the First Born Church in Santa Hill, Spaldings.
By the time she went to primary school, she was a part of uniformed groups, including Brownies, Girl Guide and the 4-H clubs. This young girl seemed destined to settle somewhere in the medical field as her mother was a midwife-intraining and her father a porter at the Univerity Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), before he migrated to England.
Fast forward three decades and, today, at 39 years old, Dr Edwards stands regal in her medical white uniform as a consultant in emergency medicine, and one of the first faces you are likely to see at the Accident and Emergency Unit at the UHWI. Her not-to-be-missed brown eyes light up her face as she towers like a traffic cop on a busy road in the emergency department.
Her high heels are no bother in the fast-paced department. In a candid chat with Outlook, Dr Edwards described her eventful early years in rural Jamaica, a happy school life, a complicated family relationship and doing what she does best – saving lives.
“It was a long road getting here,”said Dr Edwards, a consultant since 2010. She was raised by her beloved grandparents in the cool Manchester climes. They had taken her from her 24-year-old mother a few weeks after she was born. That grandfather, one of the “richest men back in the days with only a ninth-grade education”, taught her to drive at age six, putting her around the steering wheels of his car. “I steered it in the bush,” she recounted, adding that “as long as school was not in session, I went everywhere with my granddad. I had a very structured childhood at home and at school. When school (Christiana Moravian Primary) was in session, all schoolwork had to be done. I remember as children, even during playtime, we had to know our times table from two to 24 and when lunch was over, our grade five teacher, Mrs Rodney, would quiz us before we re-entered the classroom. So, yes, play all you want, but practise your times table. Fifteen square is 225 – I was traumatised,” she joked.
That structure, she
admitted, was not followed in first form at Manchester High School, leaving her “devastated” and without any prizes at her first prize-giving ceremony, although she had subject marks well in the 90s. Blaming it on chatter with a fellow classmate (who received prizes), she vowed it would never happen again. “I decided that from now on, I am going to focus. I always wanted to be a teacher – so much so that as a child, I would keep class with plants and beat the leaves. I also did work on the walls,” she remembered.
Even as she yearned to be a teacher, she was dismantling the dolls she got as a child “to see how they worked”. Her grandparents resorted to giving her books instead. It was then that she began reading her way through childhood and high school, eventually acing her CSEC subjects.
But medicine was not on her mind then. By the time she discovered her calling, she was already enrolled in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences. But life would change dramatically for this young woman, and furthering her education moved from certain to a distant dream.
When her grandfather was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate and was treated at private hospitals, it punched huge financial holes into her grandmother’s pockets. The family’s wealth dried up despite the money her granddad made doing many jobs, including butchering, farming, buying and selling scrap metal, and working as a realtor and a shopkeeper.
DIFFICULT FINANCIAL TIMES
After his death in 1985, she experienced difficult financial times, sending her into a tailspin.“I was never in need of anything as a child. My grandparents gave me everything. I got money from my father and sometimes from my mother, but when grandpa died and I sought tertiary-level education, I knew that ‘if you want good your nose has to run’ and learning to do without was (my nose running),” she said.
Student loans assisted her to pay her fees, along with a part scholarship from Tastee Ltd and grants from Alcan Jamaica, where her dad worked at the time. Luck, good friends and her participation in high-school sports would help her gain residence on hall. Focus and concentration became her friends, and by the time she finished medical school, she just missed gaining honours in pathology/microbiology. She was still smiling, though, with honours in anatomy, physiology, community health, obstetrics and gynaecology, and a distinction in pharmacology.
An internship at the Spanish Town Hospital in 2002 gave her first-hand experience and exposed her to the demands as well as the deficiencies of the health system. She would move on to UHWI a year and three months later for her date with destiny and to further her postgraduate studies in emergency medicine. On completion, she interviewed for a job in the Cayman Islands and was accepted, but around the same time, a post opened up at UHWI, so she applied and was accepted. She chose to remain at home and has been a consultant there since.
She has seen both sides of medicine, as a patient and a doctor. “I have been a patient as I have done surgery. I have had to nurse a relative as I have a disabled mom who had suffered from a massive stroke, so I can empathise all around. I have always had good mentors and friends. My colleagues in the (emergency department) and I have good camaraderie, and the staff is helpful and willing,” she said.
Today, she stands on the forefront of medicine, which is full of both laughter and tears. She recalled one happy moment. “I was sitting in the department at the end of my shift as a chief resident. One of the night-shift nurses called my attention to a patient who was just transferred from St Ann’s Bay for the cardiothoracic team. She was diaphoretic (perspiring profusely) and not responding. When I went to her, she soon lost pulse. We started to resuscitate doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The cardiac monitor showed ventricular fibrillation (a problem that occurs when the heart beats with rapid, erratic
electrical impulses). We immediately defibrillated (delivering a dose of electrical current to the heart with a device called a defibrillator) and then restarted CPR with chest compression.
“The lady revived and said, ‘Unnu go weh! A now unnu jus’ a come deal wid mi after mi waiting so long?’ She didn’t realise she nearly died and we just saved her life,” she said, laughing. One of the saddest moments for her was having to aid in the attempted resuscitation of a nursing colleague who did not make it.
“The tears just flowed, and the entire department was so sad,” she said.
The vivacious doctor, who is a lover of all sporting events, especially football which she played in school, and athletics – having medalled at the prestigious Girls Championships and was awarded ISSA’s academic athlete for 1995 – also competed for Irvine Hall during intercampus and intercollegiate games. Now she volunteers at sporting events, and finally gets to be the teacher she yearned to be, and doctor, all in one.
Currently a lecturer in emergency medicine, she was drafted by the club’s president to volunteer as the team physician for Waterhouse Football Club up to 2015. Club members would support her when she lost her maternal grandmother in 2014. Before this, her life had changed dramatically when her beloved grandmother who raised her died in 2012. She had broken up with her boyfriend just before, and in the process, lost 40 pounds in what she said was a “devastating year” from which she is still trying to “regroup”.
“Although I love my parents, after my grandpa died, my grandmother was my world.” she said. Even through the tough times, however, her drive and determination to achieve has never faltered.
“I volunteer at sporting events and would love to do a master’s in sports medicine. Since 2015, I am also a part of the executive of the Medical Association of Jamaica, serving as the assistant honorary secretary,” she said.“I enjoy working in emergency medicine, as I get a chance to teach. I am currently in a relationship and, fingers crossed, I hope to start a family soon. I haven’t conquered that as yet,” she said with a smile.
It seems everything has fallen into place for the little girl who never gave up.
I was never in need of anything as a child. My grandparents gave me everything. I got money from my father and sometimes from my mother, but when grandpa died and I sought tertiary-level education, I knew that ‘if you want good your nose has to run’ and learning to do without was (my nose running).