David Sackett facts for kids

David Lawrence Sackett OC FRSC (November 17, 1934 – May 13, 2015) was a very important American-Canadian doctor. He helped create a new way of thinking in medicine called evidence-based medicine. This means doctors should use the best scientific proof to make decisions about how to treat patients.

Dr. Sackett started the first department of clinical epidemiology in Canada at McMaster University. He also helped set up the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in the UK. He wrote famous textbooks like Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine. One of his well-known quotes was: "Half of what you learn in medical school is dead wrong." This meant that medical knowledge changes over time, and doctors must always keep learning.

Becoming a Doctor: David Sackett's Education

David Sackett studied medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He then earned a special degree called a Master of Science in Epidemiology from Harvard University. Epidemiology is the study of how diseases spread and how to control them in groups of people.

David Sackett's Amazing Medical Career

David Sackett made huge contributions to healthcare and how doctors are taught. He had a clear vision for how to make healthcare better through research. He also created new ways to do medical research and train doctors. He was great at bringing people together to work on important projects.

Life-Saving Discoveries and Research

Dr. Sackett led many important studies, called randomized clinical trials. These studies helped prove new ways to save lives.

• He showed that aspirin could help patients who were about to have a stroke or heart attack.
• He also proved that a surgery called carotid endarterectomy could prevent strokes and deaths in some patients.
• His research also showed that nurse practitioners could give excellent primary care to patients.

He also did studies that showed what didn't work. For example, he found that some traditional health education didn't help patients take their medicine. He also showed that a popular "bypass" operation for stroke patients actually caused more harm than good.

Interestingly, Dr. Sackett repeated his medical residency about 20 years after his first training. He felt he "wasn't a good enough doctor" even though he was a professor! This shows how dedicated he was to being the best doctor possible.

Pioneering Clinical Epidemiology

David Sackett is seen as one of the "fathers" of modern clinical epidemiology. This field uses scientific methods to understand health problems and how to manage them. It connects research directly to how doctors treat patients. It looks at things like what causes diseases, how to diagnose them, how they progress, and how to prevent or treat them. It also helps make healthcare better and more affordable.

In 1967, Dr. Sackett started the first department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the world at McMaster University in Canada. He helped develop many research methods through his books, articles, and lectures around the world. He made clinical research a team effort, which greatly improved the quality of healthcare research and medical practice.

Creating Evidence-Based Medicine

In the late 1970s, Dr. Sackett began to share the ideas of clinical epidemiology with doctors. He worked with his former students, like Gordon Guyatt, and many other scientists. At first, they called it "critical appraisal of the medical literature." This was to help doctors keep up with new scientific discoveries. Later, it became known as "evidence-based medicine."

Dr. Sackett led the writing of important articles and books on this topic. His book Clinical Epidemiology: A Basic Science for Clinical Medicine (1985) was very influential.

In 1994, Dr. Sackett moved to the UK. He started the first Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Britain at the University of Oxford.

His Medical Practice

Besides his research, Dr. Sackett was also a practicing doctor. He worked as a general internist. He was the Physician-in-Chief of Medicine at the Chedoke-McMaster Hospital in Canada. In Oxford, he worked as an Honorary NHS Consultant in General Medicine.

He retired from seeing patients in 1999. He then returned to Canada and created the Trout Research & Education Centre. There, he continued to read, research, write, and teach about clinical trials. He also wrote a guide about mentorship for young scientists. Over his career, he published 10 books, chapters in about 50 others, and around 300 papers in medical journals. He passed away on May 13, 2015.

Honours and Awards

David Sackett received many awards and honorary degrees for his research, teaching, and writing.

• In 1992, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
• In 2000, he was added to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
• In 2001, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
• In 2009, he received the Gairdner Foundation Wightman Award.
• He also received honorary doctorates from universities in Switzerland and Canada.

Selected Publications

• Sackett DL, Haynes RB (editors). Compliance with Therapeutic Regimens. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
• Sackett DL, Haynes RB, Tugwell P. Clinical epidemiology: a basic science for clinical medicine, First edition. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. ISBN: 0-316-76595-3.
• Sackett DL, Straus SE, Richardson WS, Rosenberg W, Haynes RB. Evidence-based medicine: how to practice and teach EBM, 2nd ed. Edinburgh & New York: Churchill Livingstone, 2000. ISBN: 0-443-06240-4.
• Straus SE, Sackett DL, Mentorship in Academic Medicine. John Wiley & Sons, 2014. Print ISBN: 9781118446027

See also

• Gordon Guyatt
• David-Sackett-Preis [de]