International Clinical Trials Day (ICTD) is an annual campaign that helps to raise the awareness of clinical trials and all those involved in making them a success.
The day celebrates the anniversary of the first clinical trial by James Lind, a Scottish Naval Surgeon, in 1747 into the causes of scurvy on board the HMS Salisbury.
This year, ICTD was on Saturday 20th May. HSRU launched their celebrations of the event through a series of photos on Twitter featuring staff that work across our trials. Professor Graeme MacLennan, CHaRT Director, kicked off our week in pictures on Twitter that also included Trial Managers, Data-Coordinators, IT managers, Qualitative Researchers, Health Economists and others. The photos included a quote from staff about why clinical trials and their work on them are important.
In addition to the Twitter photo feature, we also highlighted funding of two recent grant awards (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/10771/), videos featuring HSRU staff talking trials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwBK-h--4a8) and podcasts of staff representing James Lind in a public engagement activity held in September (Explorathon).
The week of celebrations culminated in our Public Engagement Group running a mock clinical trial (the Polo trial) at the University’s May Festival (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/10812/). Staff interacted with nearly two hundred festival goers, ranging across all ages, and spoke with them about clinical trials, randomisation, and trial follow up. We even randomised Professor Elizabeth Russell, one of HSRU’s founding members.
Pictorial summary of our May Festival event.
Picture credit: Heidi Gardner (HSRU PhD student)