David L. Sackett OC, FRSC, MD, MA, FRCP, was the founding Chair of Canada's first Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics (now Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact), at McMaster University and led the creation of a graduate studies program, the first of its kind, in Design, Measurement and Evaluation, now called the Health Research Methodology Program. During his career, he developed and mentored a new breed of applied clinician-scientists and worked with them to create and disseminate the practice of evidence-based medicine throughout the world.
Dave’s contributions are most notable in three areas: research methods for applied testing of health care innovations; use of these methods to evaluate the scientific validity and clinical merit of numerous medical interventions; and education of clinicians in understanding and applying the results of “current best evidence from research” in clinical practice. Dave has received various research awards and elections to learned societies, including the Royal Society of Canada, Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians of London and Edinburgh, the American and Canadian Societies for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the Canadian Society for Internal Medicine, and the Pan-American Health Association. He has also received numerous awards for his educational and clinical work, was elected to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2000, appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001 and most recently was presented with the prestigious Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in 2009. David Sackett died at the age of 80 on May 13, 2015.
MORE ABOUT DAVE AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS
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Year | Recipient | Research | PhD Supervisor |
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2020 | Arrti Bhasin | Deepening our understanding of the symptom profile and mental health service use of patients with advanced chronic kidney disease | Michael Walsh |
2020 | Jillian Halladay | Deepening our understanding of factors that contribute to co-occurring substance use and mental health concerns among youth, and how this comorbidity impacts clinical care and outcomes | Kathy Georgiades |
2019 | Chloe Bedard | Designing, evaluating, and implementing community-based movement and pre-literacy interventions for preschool children to improve overall development | John Cairney |
2019 | Dena Zeraatkar | Improving health research methodology in the field of nutritional epidemiology | Gordon Guyatt |
2019 | Frederick Morfaw | Determining the best strategies to prevent postpartum haemorrhage after delivery in resource constrained settings | Lawrence Mbuagbaw |
2018 | Justin Lee | Improving Medication PRescribing for Ontario's Vulnerable Elderly High Cost Healthcare Users (IMPROVE-HCU) | Anne Holbrook |
2017 | Tahira Devji | Enhancing interpretation of patient-reported outcomes in clinical research and evidence-based decision making | Gordon Guyatt |
2016 | Vanessa Ha | The relation of diet and genes on glycaemia in pregnant women | Russell de Souza and Sonia Anand |
2015 | Brittany Dennis | Chronic pain as a red herring or risk factor for methadone maintenance treatment prognosis | Zena Samaan |
2014 | Ashley Bonner | Statistical approaches to toxico-genomic data which can be used to predict the toxicity of experimental drugs | Joseph Beyene |
2013 | Lawrence Mbuagbaw | Strategies to improve adherence to anti-retroviral therapy for HIV infection | Lehana Thabane |