Born on September 18, 1934, in Christ Church, Barbados, to Guyanese parents Winslow and Ines Beckles, Dr. Frank N. Beckles was the sixth of seven children. Dr. Beckles was an authority on suicide in Guyana and wrote extensively on the subject. He attended the George Washington University, where he completed a Bachelors of Science Degree in Zoology and Howard University School of Medicine, where he graduated in 1966.

Dr. Beckles joined the Peace Corps and served in Gabon and Niger before returning to the United States where he pursued psychiatry studies at the University of Maryland’s Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour. In 1997 he returned to Guyana and set up a Psychiatry practice.