Everard N. Barton
Jamaica
Pioneer Award: North America & the Caribbean
The ISN Pioneer Awards, restricted to individuals from non-high-income countries, honor the ‘unsung heroes’ of nephrology: doctors who have made extraordinary efforts to advance nephrology in a specific country or region.
Professor Everard Barton is the former chief of nephrology at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. He is also an Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Nephrology, former chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, and founder and director of the Caribbean Institute of Nephrology at UWI.
Professor Barton has been director of the Center for HIV/AIDS Research, Education and Social Services since 2006 and governor of the American College of Physicians, Caribbean Chapter, since 2021. He is a consultant for the Renal Outreach Clinics in St. Ann and Manchester, Jamaica. He was the editor-in-chief of the West Indian Medical Journal for over two decades.
Professor Barton created the first nephrology fellowship program in the English-speaking Caribbean through the UWI, which trained many nephrologists, all still working in the Caribbean. He has organized and led annual international conferences on nephrology and hypertension for the past 16 years. He has secured close collaborative arrangements with the University of Michigan, USA, and other US universities to support these conferences and other initiatives, including an ISN Sister Renal Center partnership.
Professor Barton assisted and advised kidney services across the Caribbean. He initiated the visit of charitable missions to the Caribbean on the ‘Arterio-venous Fistula First’ mission and the screening mission for chronic noncommunicable diseases. He also launched the Caribbean Renal Registry and recommended training for both pediatric and adult nephrologists through the ISN Fellowship Program.
Professor Barton will receive the 2025 Pioneer Award for North America and the Caribbean at the Caribbean Institute of Nephrology Conference on January 26, 2025.