Antigua and Barbuda’s leading public medical facility, Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre (SLBMC), marked a key milestone in local medical education on Wednesday as it hosted a formal graduation ceremony to wrap up its 2025–2026 Medical Internship Programme, celebrating the achievements of the 2026 cohort of trainee doctors.
Widely regarded as a non-negotiable stepping stone for new medical graduates seeking full professional registration in the country, this intensive 12-month clinical residency is designed to bridge the gap between academic classroom learning and independent patient care. Over the course of the program, all interns completed mandatory core rotations across four high-priority clinical specialties: internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics. Each rotation provides immersive, hands-on clinical experience that allows trainee doctors to build the technical competence, diagnostic reasoning, and bedside manner required to deliver safe, effective care to local communities. Successful completion of the program is a legal requirement to obtain full medical licensure and practice independently across Antigua and Barbuda, making the internship a critical transition point for early-career physicians.
Beyond the collective achievement of the graduating class, the ceremony featured a special awards segment to recognize individual and institutional excellence across the program. Dr. Georgian Ajilloh emerged as the standout performer of the cohort, taking home three of the night’s top honors: Intern of the Year, the Patient Care & Compassion Award, and the Leadership & Team Spirit Award. The Intern of the Year title recognized Ajilloh’s consistent strong performance across all program requirements, as well as her embodiment of core medical values of competence, empathy, and professional ethics. Dr. David Odulaja also earned two awards: the Clinical Excellence Award for his outstanding diagnostic acumen and clinical decision-making, and the Spirit of Service Award for his extraordinary commitment to supporting patients, fellow interns, and the broader medical community. Rounding out the individual intern awards, Dr. Brianna Benjamin took home the Most Improved Intern title in recognition of her dramatic growth in clinical skill, professional confidence, and maturity over the 12-month program.
The ceremony also celebrated outstanding contributions from SLBMC’s teaching faculty and departments, highlighted by historic back-to-back wins for two recipients. For the second consecutive year, Dr. Vonetta George, Chair of SLBMC’s Department of Surgery, claimed the Mentorship Award for her sustained commitment to guiding and developing the next generation of doctors. The Department of Paediatrics also repeated as winner of the Outstanding Department Support award for its robust infrastructure and training support for interns. Additionally, Dr. Gaden Osborne, SLBMC’s lead neurologist and Chair of Subspecialties, was honored with the Best Teaching Consultant Award for his exceptional dedication to advancing medical education at the facility.
In her keynote address at the ceremony, SLBMC Medical Director Dr. Shivon Belle-Jarvis emphasized that graduation from the internship represents far more than the completion of a training requirement — it marks the start of a lifelong commitment to patient-centered care. “Today is about more than celebrating the completion of a training program. It is about recognizing the doctors these young professionals have become and the responsibility they now carry,” she said. “Over the past year, they have learned that medicine is not simply about diagnosing and treating illness; it is about listening, showing compassion and earning the trust that patients place in us at some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. We are proud of what they have accomplished, and we hope they carry that sense of responsibility, humility and service with them throughout their careers. The patients and communities they will serve deserve nothing less.”
For the 2026 intern class, the ceremony closes out a year of rigorous training, personal growth, and professional development, opening the door for the new graduates to begin their independent careers serving the people of Antigua and Barbuda.