The inaugural lecture of Professor Richard Lilford

Location
Leonard Deacon Lecture Theatre, Birmingham Medical School, B1 on Edgbaston Campus Map
Dates
Wednesday 1 June 2022 (16:30-17:30)
Contact

Please get in touch with Yvonne Dawson if you have any questions or would like more information.

Photograph of Professor Richard Lilford.
Professor Richard Lilford.

You are invited to attend the inaugural lecture of Professor Richard Lilford CBE from the Institute of Applied Health Research: 'A little light epistemology: changing views on what counts as medical knowledge over a fifty year career'.

During his inaugural lecture, Professor Lilford, Director of National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Centre West Midlands (ARC WM), will describe his involvement in trials over the last half-century and explain why current statistical philosophy is a poor guide to the design and analysis of trials. 

Professor Lilford will offer views on alternatives to hypothesis tests and their implications, such as designating a ‘primary’ outcome, dichotomising outcomes and the risible practice of insisting that trials can only go ahead if they are adequately ‘powered’. He will argue that trials based on informative Bayesian approaches and causal pathway analysis are a better guide for clinical and policy decisions than the current methodological cannon.