Chevening recipient speaks on achievement

Antigua and Barbuda’s lone Chevening recipient for the 2025 cohort, Dr. David Francis shared he was quite elated when he got the news that he was chosen.

The news broke in early August.

“Well my initial thoughts were, as it relates to getting the scholarship,essentially well now I have the ability to, an actionable ability to go off and study something that I think would be impactful for Antigua and Barbuda, something that I’ve looked forward to, epidemiology, which is a branch of public health, which really studies things like determinants of health.

“It studies the impact and it goes over gathering data on what certain diseases look like in certain demographics and how we can make actionable changes to improve the impact of those diseases and so specifically for my field of study which is applied infectious disease epidemiology, it serves as a more practical approach to that,” Francis said.

Francis currently serves as a House Officer in the Subspecialties Department of Internal Medicine at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre, where he specializes in Nephrology, Neurology, and Oncology. He also chairs the Infectious Disease Committee of the hospital’s dialysis unit, where he has developed expertise in infection prevention and control protocols for high-risk patients.

He will use his scholarship to pursue a Master of Science degree in Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London.

Francis explained why he chose that field of study.

“So the exact course of study is applied infectious disease epidemiology and so what that would allow me to do is look at outbreaks, formulate and stratify for plans to mitigate certain infectious diseases, well infectious diseases across the board, working along with Dr. Bell which is not to be confused with Bill Jarvis, Margaret Bell who’s the infectious disease specialist.

“Try and mitigate some of the things that we see in the hospital, some of the things we see in the population that are on the rise right now,” Francis detailed.

The Chevening Scholarship program, funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, provides full funding for outstanding professionals and academics to complete one-year master’s degrees at leading British universities. Recipients are selected based on their leadership potential and commitment to creating positive change in their home countries.

Resident British Ambassador John Hamilton spoke on the importance of the Chevening program.

“Of course, well we make no secret of the fact that what we’re looking for from the Chevening program is really for the best of the best from around the world. Program has been running for over 40 years now and globally we’ve made Chevening awards in over 180 countries and territories to 60,000 people and of those we have ended up so far with about 40 people who have been the heads of state, heads of government in those countries including here in Antigua where we’re proud to have a former prime minister in the number of Chevening scholars here and that really shows the level that we’re looking at for here and in every country.

“We’re looking at those people who really are showing the potential to reach the top of their chosen fields and it’s their chosen fields, this is not something  that we’re directing, we listen to people, we listen when we’re going through the interview process, we listen to people, we listen to the case that they are making for why their chosen field of study is important and then get into an assessment of how likely it is that they’re going to achieve that and that comes through a track record, it comes through their educational background, it comes through their professional experience and then it comes through how well they perform in what’s a very, very competitive interview process,” Hamilton explained.

He commended Francis for achieving such a feat.

“So David has done really, really well, he has not only had to stand out against people here in Antigua and Barbuda but he’s also had to stand out against the whole of the rest of the Eastern Caribbean as well so it’s a massive achievement that is here and we are sure that he’s going to have a really successful period of study in the UK and come back and will be one of the leading doctors, if not the leading doctor in the country for many, many years to come,” Hamilton added.

The application window is now open until November.

Ambassador Hamilton is encouraging other Antiguans and Barbudans to apply.

Interested candidates are encouraged to prepare strong, evidence-based applications and apply online at chevening.org/apply. Guidance and eligibility details are available at chevening.org/guidance.