Family Practice Vol. 19, No. 3, 222
© Oxford University Press 2002
Editorial |
Obituary: Chris Silagy
Chris Silagy died on 13 December 2001, leaving an unfillable gap in medicine and in many peoples' lives. As well as being an energetic and effective champion of evidence-based medicine, a pioneer of the Cochrane Collaboration and an extraordinarily productive researcher, Chris was also a member of the Editorial Board of Family Practice, a member of the Editorial Board of the Oxford Textbook of Primary Medical Care, currently in preparation, and a personal friend.
We first met when Chris was visiting Oxford as a Sir Robert Menzies Scholar in Medicine in the Department of Public Health, in the early 1990s. It was there that he met Sir Iain Chalmers, who was setting up the first Cochrane Centre. Chris was an absolute whirlwind of energy and imagination, and papers starting appearing in the British Medical Journal almost as soon, it seemed, as he arrived. His landmark systematic review of nicotine replacement therapy was published by the Centre as a guide to other reviewers, and his energy galvanized much other research at Oxford.
He went back to Australia in 1993, to the Foundation Chair of General Practice at Flinders University, where he established the Australasian Cochrane Centre. He moved with the Centre to Monash University in 1999, and the following year he was appointed the Director of the National Institute of Clinical Studies in Melbourne. The last 4 years of his life were overshadowed by the diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, involving bone marrow transplantation and chemotherapy, but this did not seem to get in the way of his achievements. Throughout his illness, Chris was remarkably open about its progress and his response to treatment and even wrote a paper about measuring the changing dimensions of his own spleen during a period of hospitalization. Chris's achievements were recognized recently by his appointment as an Officer of the Australian Order, a distinction of which I know he was very proud.
We will all miss Chris terribly. We will miss his unfailing charm and enthusiasm, his directness and energy, and his ability to get things done. This issue of Family Practice carries, fittingly, a paper from Monash authored by Chris and a number of his colleagues, on the effectiveness of local adaptation of nationally produced clinical practice guidelines. It has been a privilege to have known and worked with Chris Silagy and some comfort to know that, in a very real sense, many of his achievements will live on after him.
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