News and Events
Cochrane Workshop held at the St. Luke's College of Medicine
Last September 25-28, 2007, the Department of Clinical Research of the Research and Biotechnology Division of St. Luke's Medical Center, in coordination with the St. Luke's College of Medicine, organized a Cochrane systematic review< workshop.The Dean Perez Hall at the 9th Floor of the College was full to the brim with participants coming from different medical schools and health organization in the Philippines as well as our own medical staff and faculty members.
Among the invited foreign speakers were: Phil Wiffen, Director of Training at the UK Cochrane Center; Steve McDonald, Deputy Director of the Australasian Cochrane Center and Jacqueline Ho, Coordinator of the Malaysian Cochrane Node. Local Faculty were also on hand to facilitate the small group activities. They were: Dr. Belen Lardizabal-Dofitas, Dr. Romulo Aguilar, Dr. Marissa Alejandria, Dr. Noel Atienza, Dr. Minerva Calimag, Dr. Teresita Castillo, Dr. Arlene Crisostomo and Dr. Glenn Marinas.
The Cochrane Collaboration is the largest, not-for-profit organization in the world engaged in the production and maintenance of systematic reviews. The Cochrane Collaboration was founded in 1993 and named after the British epidemiologist, Sir Archie Cochrane. The Collaboration aims to help people make well-informed decisions by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of interventions in all areas of health care. The reviews involve consumers as authors or peer reviewers so that the studies achieve relevance to end-users such as patients and the public in general (http://www.cochrane.org).
The first two days of the workshop were intended for first time would be Cochrane reviewers. It gave participants a basic overview of how a systematic review is done and developed. The last two days were then intended for more advanced Cochrane reviewers. In addition, free seminars were given on the following topics: Evidence Based Pain Medicine and Search Strategies for Systematic Review for the Medical Librarians and Researchers.
It was indeed four full days of useful information as attested to by anyone who attended. Kudos to Dr. Belen Dofitas and the rest of the organizing committee. The same goes to Dr. Filipinas Natividad and Dr. Isaac David Ampil, Director and Co-Director respectively, of the Research and Biotechnology Division which continues to challenge us with the unlimited potentials of research in our medical life.
