Welsh Affairs Committee (WAC) - Cochrane Lecture
THE COCHRANE LECTURE
The Cochrane Lecture is held in Wales every two years. Sponsored by the Welsh Affairs Committee, the Faculty Local Advisory Committee in Wales, the lecture is held in honour of Archie Cochrane. The following profile, written by a colleague of his, Robert West, explains why Archie was held in such esteem in Wales and why the Lecture is held in his honour.
Archie Cochrane
Archie Cochrane spent most of his professional life in Cardiff, first in the MRC Pneumoconiosis Unit, briefly as professor of Tuberculosis and then as director of the MRC Epidemiology Research Unit. He was the first president of the Faculty of Community Medicine, in 1974, now Faculty of Public Health.
Archie (or ALC) was widely recognized for his enthusiasm for collecting evidence on effectiveness and efficiency of medical practice. The international ‘Cochrane Collaboration' for systematic reviews of trials in medical care was so named in his memory.
Although known for his exhortation ‘randomise, randomise, randomise until it hurts', we teased him that he did not direct randomised trials himself. He led younger men into those roles; for example, in heart disease Burr, Elwood, Mather, West: he was behind all these trials. His own research was a cohort study of miners in the Rhondda , with a long follow-up and painstaking attention to response rates and detail.
To limit his contribution to effectiveness and the clinical trial would be overly restrictive. He was eclectic in his interests, and had close friendships with leading economists, social scientists, politicians and other public figures. He fostered research within the Epidemiology Research Unit, quite unconnected with his follow-up of coal worker's pneumoconiosis, like a sociological study of delinquency in schools.
Friday and Saturday evenings at his home in Rhoose were always intellectually stimulating. The short monograph ‘Effectiveness and efficiency' gives a flavour of his thinking.