Professor Hayden Homer was born in the small Caribbean island of Trinidad, population 1.3 million. It is the larger island of the twin-island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago. He obtained a National Scholarship from Presentation College that saw him study undergraduate Medicine at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Hayden graduated from Medicine with a Distinction in Obstetrics & Gynaecology and was the only one in his Trinidadian cohort to graduate MBBS with Honours in 1992. He travelled to the UK in 1997 to complete 6 months’ work-experience that was a requirement at the time for gaining Membership of the British Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (MRCOG). That 6-month placement morphed into 17 years of training and working in the UK, one wife and 2 children!
Hayden, his wife and two school-aged children moved to Australia in 2014 when Hayden was invited to join the University of New South Wales to strengthen their fertility research portfolio. After living in Sydney for 2 years, the family moved to Brisbane in 2016, this time because Hayden was head-hunted to take up The University of Queensland’s Professorship in Reproductive Medicine.
Trinidad is the most southerly of the Caribbean chain of islands (known as the West Indies). It is located very close to Venezuela in South America. Trinidad has produced some famous sporting personalities including Hasely Crawford (1976 100m Olympic Gold Medal Champion) and one of the world’s greatest batsmen, Brian Lara. Trinidad is renowned for its steel band, calypso, “soca” and of course, the biggest street party in the world, carnival. For “Trini Carnival”, all the main roads including those in the capital, Port-of-Spain, are closed for 2 days to allow revellers to “masquerade” through the streets in flamboyant costumes, usually as part of a larger “carnival band”. In his younger days, Hayden “played mas” with Harts Carnival Band.