Richard Doll Seminar: Can we transform perinatal care through larger, more efficient, collectively prioritised international trials?

Abstract

William is an academic neonatologist, who graduated with first class Honours in Cambridge. He has a globally recognised record of translational research via international multicentre RCTs and cohort studies in >30,000 patients and >200 neonatal units worldwide. Having trained in neonatal medicine in the UK, he moved to Sydney in 1999 as inaugural Chair of Neonatology at Westmead Hospital, University of Sydney and Director of Neonatology.

He has been a strong advocate of large multicentre neonatal and perinatal studies to answer key clinical questions and has conducted multiple landmark collaborative studies such as the International Neonatal Immunotherapy Trial, the ECSURF Study, the UK Neonatal Staffing Study, INIS, BOOST II Australia, the Australian Placental Transfusion Study (APTS) of delayed cord clamping and the NeOProM Collaboration of oxygen saturation. Each has contributed to evidence that is likely to save millions of lives in coming years.

This raises a new challenge: “In the next decade, can parents, patients, professionals, researchers, policymakers, providers, funders and the public collaborate to embed international trials in routine care that are ten times larger and faster, at one tenth the cost?”