NEW YORK (March 9, 2009) - Soon, the island of St. Lucia could take credit for producing one of the Caribbean's youngest medical doctors.

Sixteen-year-old Guyanese-born, St. Lucia-raised Alicia Thuraman is on the fast track to becoming a doctor and is already raising eyebrows for her academic brilliance while also raising awareness about the island of St. Lucia at New Jersey's Fairleigh Dickinson University.

A sophomore biochemistry student, Thuraman - who is currently on a partial scholarship - graduated from Choiseul Secondary School in St. Lucia with nine CXC distinctions and two Grade One certificates. She skipped a grade while at Soufriere Primary School which has enabled her to enter college at the enviable age of 15.

"People ask why am I so young, but they don't treat me any differently," said the soft-spoken Alicia Thuraman, who added that students and faculty ask her a lot about St. Lucia.

Commanding an impressive Grade Point Average of 3.82, she is confident about her future and hopes to enroll in a New York medical school in a few years' time while still a teenager.

"We at the United Nations Mission and St. Lucia Consulate are heartened to see that St. Lucia continues to produce such impressive academic talent," commented St. Lucia's Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Donatus St. Aimee, who himself graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

He said that on the occasion of the island's 30th anniversary of Independence, the young people of St. Lucia ought to be inspired by the academic accomplishments of Nobel Laureates such as Sir Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott, and called on more of them to place tertiary education at the forefront of their ambitions.

The Ambassador said he and his staff were inspired by the impressive showing of young people at a recently staged evening of poetry at the United Nations Mission.

In the photograph, Ambassador St. Aimee (right) and St. Lucia's former UN Ambassador Dr. Edsel Edmunds chat with 16 year-old college student Alicia Thuraman at an Ambassador's Reception at the UN Mission held on the occasion of the island's 30th Anniversary of Independence.