E-DRUG: Andrew Herxheimer, 1925-2016 (7)
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in memory of Andrew Herxheimer
It's already more than a week of loss and pain, and mourning after Andrew Herxheimer's passing away last Sunday.
May I join in heartfelt remembering and thanking Andrew Herxheimer, a legendary hero of modern Evidence-based Clinical pharmacology, urging us to concentrate on medicines harms with the Cochrane precision and quality and his unique personal approach.
I met Andrew in person only in October 2010 at the Selling Sickness Conference in Amsterdam. It was Andrew's sterling strong generous support that enabled our humble attempts to develop patient-oriented clinical pharmacology and quality medicines information delivery in Russia.
Andrew supported our first Conference 'Quality information for Quality Use of Medicines' (QiQUM 2010) in Kazan with his endorsement, and we worked together with him and David Menkes on the Conference report and its resolution.
Andrew planned to come to Kazan with Christine for the recent Conference -Evidence-Based Medicine: achievements and barriers - QiQUM 2015, dedicated to the launch of the Russian Branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre - Cochrane Russia.
He was so excited with our beginnings of Cochrane activities in Russia and so much wanted us to get things right. His strong and very gentle will helped us overcoming all the challenges of difficult preparations. He had responded immediately when I asked him to join the Advisory board of the future to be Cochrane Russia.
We last met in Vienna at the Cochrane Colloquium 2015, and it seemed then that Andrew was forever, he was so full of life, energy, ideas, advices, and jokes... he was planning to come to Kazan for our Conference, until the health problems amounted.... yet he kept encouraging me.
He was so happy about our launch.... my world is becoming emptier with his departure....
This is what Andrew sent us and what we will pursue in all our future developments:
[quote]
'What is very important to me is that in your work you give as much attention to the harms that treatments can do as to their benefits, both in your scientific work and in your practice. It is also important to teach patients (and family members) about their illnesses and tests and treatments, to listen carefully to what they tell you, and to encourage them to ask questions. It is also very useful to start collecting people's personal illness experiences systematically, and making them accessible to everyone on the Internet. We began to do this in Britain 15 years ago - you can see the results on www.healthtalk.org and www.youthhealthtalk.org
'Now research groups in a dozen other countries are building such collections (see www.dipexinternational.org ), and I hope that Russia will also be able to join in. This is qualitative research and so is quite separate from the Cochrane Collaboration, but I hope it will more and more converge with Cochrane in the future.' [end of quote]
Andrew Herxheimer is and will always be with us, we treasure his legacy and will work to be worth him.
Lilia
Liliya Eugenevna Ziganshina, MD, PhD, DSci,
Cochrane Russia, Director
Professor, Head, Department of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology,
Institute of Medicine and Biology
Kazan Federal University
Lilia Ziganshina <lezign@mail.ru>