A Bermudian doctor has expressed his delight at being awarded a prize for the most outstanding research paper at a conference in Barbados.

Kyjuan Brown, the director of the Northshore Medical & Aesthetics Centre, was awarded the Professor Hywel Williams Research Prize, also known as the “Apple” Award, at the annual Caribbean Dermatology Association (CDA) conference this weekend.

“I am in disbelief as this is such a great honour,” Dr Brown said. “There were many other more distinguished physicians, authors and researchers than I, yet I was awarded such an honour.”

For the past two and a half years, Dr Brown has been treating people with a variety of hair loss problems and he highlighted his research in his presentation “Doctor, I Now Have Hair!”. More than 20 physicians from the United States, Canada, the UK and the Caribbean also presented their work in the field.

“We present our original research articles or clinical cases in an effort to advance the science of dermatology and my clinical/scientific approach is using combination therapy that was viewed as experimental,” Dr Brown said.

“However, I presented that it actually works, when done correctly, so I outlined the sets which I used and the results that I have seen.

“This award validates my work, which is an amazing feeling.”

Dr Brown said that as a young physician, who has been practising for about ten years, his treatment methods are sometimes viewed as “not evidence-based” by his colleagues mainly “because they are new, cutting edge and innovative”.

He added that it can often take years to publish research and that the award validated his present direction, “despite the lack of published clinical evidence”, which, he said, “does not mean that the treatment does not yield results”.

“What this award says is that the clinical methods I employ in reference to the treatment of patients suffering from hair loss is innovative, forward thinking and out of all the presenters has the greatest relevance to patients in the Caribbean,” he told The Royal Gazette.

“I have other colleagues throughout the world who are keen to learn my methods so as to start treating their own patients who suffer from this devastating condition.

“This is why I am in such disbelief that little old me from Bermuda, is now effecting change in the treatment of patients with alopecia (hair loss).

“There is no greater honour than to take what you have learnt and pass that on for the benefit of the wider medical community.”

The “Apple” Award is presented at the end of the CDA conference to the presenter of the most outstanding original research paper with the greatest relevance to the Caribbean.