Register here to join our In Conversation Live with Professor Ben Goldacre
Professor Ben Goldacre, Doctor, Academic, Writer, and Broadcaster, will be joining Professor Sir Simon Wessely, RSM immediate Past-President, for a conversation about his career, the work produced by DataLab such as OpenSAFELY, a fully open source and highly secure analytics platform for NHS data created during the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also discuss his previous bestselling book, Bad Science, England’s variation in prescribing behaviour across the NHS, and outcome switching in clinical trials and the serious problem this poses.
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Professor Ben Goldacre trained in medicine at Oxford and University College London (UCL), in psychiatry at the Maudsley, and in epidemiology at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). His academic and policy work is in informatics, epidemiology and evidence-based medicine, where he works on various problems including variation in care, better uses of routinely collected electronic health data, evidence-based social policy, access to clinical trial data, efficient trial design, and retracted papers.
Professor Ben Goldacre is responsible for running DataLab, a multidisciplinary team of academics, clinicians and software developers, all pooling skills and knowledge to turn large datasets into tools and services as well as pure academic research papers.
In policy work, he is currently leading a 2021 review into the Better, Broader, Safer Use of NHS Data, reporting to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. He is chair of the HealthTech Advisory Board, a member of the Data Science Advisory Board for the Joint Biosecurity Centre and has previously served on various national committees including the Department for Education Data and Evidence Board and the Ministry of Justice Data, Evidence and Science Board. And he is the co-founder of the AllTrials campaign.
He co-authored an influential Cabinet Office paper, advocating for randomised trials in government, and setting out mechanisms to drive this forward; and conducted an independent external review for the Department for Education, on improving the creation and use of evidence in the teaching sector.
Professor Ben Goldacre engages broadly with policymakers and has given evidence on numerous occasions to various parliamentary select committees including the Public Accounts Committee, Science and Technology, Health, and Culture Media & Sport.
Professor Ben Goldacre also works in public engagement, writing and broadcasting for a general audience on problems in evidence-based medicine. He is responsible for the bestselling book Bad Science, a wise and witty read that lifts the lid on quack doctors, flaky statistics, scaremongering journalists and evil pharmaceutical corporations. His books have sold over 700,000 copies and his TED talks have had over 4 million views online; while being accessible to a general audience, these lectures and books are also used in university teaching around the world.
*There may be slight changes to the advertised start and end times of this webinar, subject to Professor Goldacre's work requirements.
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Disclaimer: All views expressed in this webinar are of the speakers themselves and not of the RSM.
The In Conversation Live webinar series will continue our much loved In Conversation events, giving you the opportunity to get first-hand insights into the lives and thoughts of high profile individuals, bringing an intimate, relaxed and entertaining perspective into your living room.
The RSM In Conversation Live series form part of our new philanthropic initiative. All donations from this series directly fund the RSM's vision to advance health through education and innovation.
This webinar will be recorded and stored by the Royal Society of Medicine and may be distributed in future on various internet channels.
