Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics
The Enkin Lectureship
Dr.
Murray Enkin, Professor
Emeritus of the Departments of Obstetrics
and Gynecology and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and
his wife Eleanor Enkin have made many important contributions to clinical
research in pregnancy and childbirth, and have been strong advocates
for family centered maternity care, for consumers' choices in obstetrics
and for midwifery. More generally, they have been advocates of a wider
view of science in the service of humanity. They have spent a lifetime
challenging clinical and scientific consensus.
Dr. Enkin has been a family physician, obstetrician, prenatal educator, medical researcher and clinical epidemiologist. He and his collaborators were instrumental in the development of systematic reviews of diagnostic, therapeutic, and supportive care in pregnancy and childbirth which flowered in the Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials, Effective Care in Pregnancy which, in turn, led to the develoment of the Cochrane Collaboration.
In addition to his expertise as a clinician, educator and scientist, Dr. Enkin has been a profound and outspoken skeptic about the value of technology in care, a passionate advocate for the importance of considering alternative forms of care outside the "medical model" and for the critical role of support, caring and nurturing, and a vigorous promoter of the autonomy and vital role of the consumer in health care. The Enkin Lectureship reflects a focus on the essential role of science on the service of humanity, and the restoration or introduction of humanitarian values into science in general, and into clinical research in particular.