This month, a great paediatrician and mentor retired from 47 years of service to Papua New Guinea.
Professor John Vince has been a teacher, mentor and friend to the PNG Institute of Medical Research. He was a Council member for many years, a generous and reliable reviewer and author for the PNG Medical Journal and helped to ensure the quality and ethical conduct of clinical trials as a member of Data Safety Monitoring Boards.
Professor Moses Laman, PNGIMR’s Deputy Director of Science and Research, recounts how Prof Vince helped him as a young and aspiring medical researcher.
Prof Vince has always been an inspiring teacher, and many of us medical students looked up to him. Even the sick children in the paediatric wards seem to magically have an affinity towards him. As a medical student, I remember often seeing Prof Vince carrying kids of all backgrounds on his sides and on his shoulders while doing ward rounds! He was a remarkable mentor and advocate for equity, particularly for vulnerable children and parents, and he conducted his duties diligently with excellence and without the need for recognition.
I remember walking into his office 24 years ago as a second-year medical student and asking him if I could do a Bachelor of Medical Science research degree under his supervision. He looked at me and said, ‘Okay young man, I tell you what, you should complete your second year first, then go on and complete your third year next year, and if you are still interested, come back and see me in 2 years and I’ll try my best to be your supervisor because I have never supervised a Bachelor of Medical Science student before.’ As caring as he is, Prof Vince is also a brutally honest teacher.
So that was what we did. After completing my MBBS 2, I went on to complete my MBBS 3, and then I went back to see him after two years, wondering if he would still remember his promise. To my surprise, he remembered me and his promise. That was the kind of person Prof Vince is and has been. He will keep his promise to you regardless of how unimportant or unknown a student might be.
After realising that I would need help, he called in a few more paediatricians, Dr Paulus Ripa and Prof Nakapi Tefuarani, to be my research co-supervisors. Many thanks to Prof Trevor Duke, who also helped me by bringing in printed published literature on pneumonia and hypoxaemia from Melbourne because I didn’t have access to good medical journals and internet at that time. I was thrilled when we published my first-ever paper on the role of clinical predictors of hypoxaemia in patients with severe pneumonia in Annuals of Tropical Paediatrics in 2005.
I had started working at Port Moresby General Hospital in 2006 when PNGIMR was looking to recruit young doctors under the Fogarty Program to run its research projects. Prof Vince came to my house to inform me about this opportunity. Trusting him and knowing that he would not set me up to fail, I accepted the role and became one of only two National doctors ever to join the Institute 18 years ago. As my career advanced, I wanted to include Prof Vince in as many scientific papers as I could to acknowledge his contribution to my career, but he constantly told me not to do so, ‘My contribution is now limited, and you don’t have to include me in all your papers going forward.”’
Prof Vince has a lot of self-awareness and prefers to conduct his duties without favour. His preference to remain under the radar and to leave the shores of PNG quietly on the 22nd of November 2024 after nearly 50 years of service to Papua New Guinea reflects his unique and humble traits.
The many policies and standard treatment guideline improvements; the many capacities built through honours, masters and PhDs or Medical Doctorate degrees; and the many research grants that are creating employment opportunities and creating a conducive research environment for ordinary Papua New Guineans today at PNGIMR would not have been possible without your support to me. Thank you, Professor John Vince.
Prof Moses Laman MBBS, BMSc, DCH, MMSc, PhD
Deputy Director – Science and Research
PNG Institute of Medical Research
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