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Dr. David Lawrence Sackett (1934-2015) was a physician, clinical scientist, and educator who is widely considered the father of evidence-based medicine.

Born and raised in suburban Chicago, Illinois, USA, Sackett earned a B.A. degree in 1956 from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, and a B.Sc. in 1958 and an M.D. in 1960 from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago specializing in internal medicine and nephrology. He was then a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health before being drafted into the armed forces as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sackett was allocated to the U.S. Public Health Service and positioned at the Chronic Disease Research Institute at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Here, his interest shifted from laboratory to clinical medicine, particularly clinical epidemiology. In 1967, he earned an M.Sc. degree in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1967, Sackett moved to Hamilton, Ontario to establish in McMaster University’s new School of Medicine the world’s first Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, in which he became an Associate Professor and of which he became the first Chair. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in 1970. In 1974 and 1975, he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Community Medicine at St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School in London, England, working with Dr. Walter W. Holland. At McMaster, Sackett conducted novel research into the effects of aspirin and carotid endarterectomy in reducing the chances of stroke; care and treatment options for those suffering from hypertension; and the effectiveness of nurse practitioners. He led the creation of an M.Sc. program in clinical epidemiology and health care research methods, and persuaded McMaster not to create a Department of Public Health so that the ideas of epidemiology would not be isolated in one department.

In 1983, in an effort to keep up-to-date clinically, Sackett undertook a two-year residency in hospitalist internal medicine. He subsequently served as Physician-in-Chief at Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals and then, beginning in 1990, as Head of the Division of General Internal Medicine for the Hamilton region and Attending Physician at Henderson General Hospital.

During his time in Hamilton, Sackett worked to develop the concept of evidence-based medicine, which posits that patient care should be based on a critical appraisal of the best and most up-to-date scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values, as opposed to tradition, authority, and subjective judgement. It requires that randomized clinical trials (RCTs) be conducted to determine the efficacy of diagnostic tests and treatments and that the results of these trials be made accessible to and be trusted by physicians. For this reason, Sackett spent much time examining and improving the ways in which RCTs are carried out as well as actually carrying them out. Evidence-based medicine further requires that the results of each trial be compared with those of other trials concerning the same medical condition. In 1993, an international charitable organization, the Cochrane Collaboration, was formed to oversee the undertaking of this work by volunteer experts. Sackett became the first Chair of its Steering Group.

The following year, Sackett left McMaster and moved to England to become the founding Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford and a clinician at John Radcliffe Hospital. While at Oxford, Sackett traveled extensively within the United Kingdom and Europe, visiting hospitals and teaching medical professionals about evidence-based medicine, which, as a result, gained great popularity. He also became the founding Co-Editor of the journal Evidence-Based Medicine. Wanting to make way for new thinking, Sackett gave his final lecture on evidence-based medicine in 1999.

That same year, Sackett officially retired from academia and clinical practice and returned to Canada. In Irish Lake, Ontario, he founded and became the Director of the Kilgore S. Trout Research & Education Centre (now based in Hamilton), where he read, researched, wrote, and taught about RCTs. Sackett also served as an expert witness in lawsuits against Big Pharma.

Dr. Sackett died in Markdale, Ontario on 13 May 2015 at the age of 80 due to cholangiocarcinoma (cancer of the bile duct).

Throughout his life, Sackett published twelve books, about sixty book chapters, and over four hundred articles in medical and scientific journals, and earned numerous prestigious awards and honours, including an Honorary Doctorate of Science from McMaster in 2009.

Ross Russell was born in Russell Greenberg on January 30, 1911, in Toronto, Ontario. He was born to James Greenberg and Rose Wermes, who were non-practicing Jews. Both of Russell’s parents were born in the United States but came to Canada to raise their family.

Russell lived and attended school in Toronto, but at the age of 18 left school and started work at FW Woolworth Company in North York, transferring after a year and a half to the Montreal location as an assistant manager. In the early 1930s, the Depression occurred, and Adolph Hitler came to power, prompting Russell to start educating himself on world politics and conflicts. When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, Russell followed the story closely. It was at this time that he married, and his wife became one of the leaders of a local committee dedicated to helping the Spanish. In 1937, Russell left his job and signed onto the International Brigades, ready to travel overseas and help in the Spanish conflict. He and his fellows secretively journeyed to Spain by way of France, enacting a “spy thriller-esque” sequence of covert meetings, midnight bus convoys, and a march over the Pyrenees Mountains.

Once at the Albacete headquarters of the International Brigades, the men were divided into language groups and Canada was paired up with America and England to form the 15th Brigade. Russell was trained to be a machine gunner and moved many times with his company but didn’t see any action until the fight for Tervel. During this battle, he was hit in the back by shrapnel and had to be taken first to hospital and then a convalescent home in Denia. After recovering from this injury, misfortune struck again when the train Russell was travelling in was bombed and he was once more hit by a bomb fragment. In the early summer of 1938, Russell was in a hospital in Valencia when the city was bombed, delaying his departure from Spain.

Russell returned home to Montreal in February of 1938 and, after a period of recovery, was scouted to manage a new location of the Federal Store, on the condition that he change his original surname of Greenberg, which he did. However, after only a year and a half, he got a more attractive offer from a store in Toronto and moved back with his wife, enlisting in the army reserves once there. In the 1970s, Russell joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion Veterans, an association committed to gaining official veteran status for those Canadians who fought in the Spanish Civil War. He eventually become president of the association and remained an active member until his death in 1990.

Connie Lynn Rankin Roland was born in 1935, to father Ray William Rankin, and mother Mildred Dorothy Vincent. Connie spent her childhood and adolescent years in Tillsonburg, where she helped her father with office work in his medical practice. She later became an actor, and in 1979 married medical historian Dr. Charles Gordon Roland, with whom she had seven children.

Charles (Chuck) Gordon Roland was a physician, writer, medical historian, and the first Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine at McMaster University. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1933, Dr. Roland studied at the University of Toronto before completing his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. He was a general practitioner in Tillsonburg and Grimsby, Ontario from 1958 to 1964. Following this, Dr. Roland took various roles in teaching, writing, and editing in America, including senior editorship at the Journal of the American Medical Association, lecturing at Northwestern University, and assisting in developing the Mayo Clinic’s medical school, initially holding associate professorship prior to chairing its Department of Biomedical Communications. He became the inaugural Hannah Professor for the History of Medicine at McMaster University in 1977, and retired in 1999. Dr. Roland passed on June 9, 2009, at the age of 76.

Dr. Roland’s research and writing produced a large corpus of work, and he was involved with various associations during his career, including the Toronto Medical History Society and the American Osler Society. Dr. Roland conducted over three hundred oral history interviews pertaining to the history of medicine in wartime, in Canada, and the formation of McMaster University’s School of Medicine. His extensive work regarding wartime medicine in particular produced two monographs about the clandestine Warsaw ghetto medical school, and the experiences of Prisoners-of-War in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. His other research interests included the medical histories of Canada and Hamilton, and Sir William Osler.

Dr. Roland’s published works include biographies of notable figures in Canadian medical history, Courage under Siege: starvation, disease, and death in the Warsaw ghetto, Long Night’s Journey into Day, bibliographies in the history of Canadian medicine, and many publications related to his research on Sir William Osler. Dr. Roland edited and/or wrote for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Clinical Cardiology, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, the Journal of Anesthesia and Analgesia, and various other medical journals.

Charles (Chuck) Gordon Roland was a physician, writer, medical historian, and the first Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine at McMaster University. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1933, Dr. Roland studied at the University of Toronto before completing his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. He was a general practitioner in Tillsonburg and Grimsby, Ontario from 1958 to 1964. Following this, Dr. Roland took various roles in teaching, writing, and editing in America, including senior editorship at the Journal of the American Medical Association, lecturing at Northwestern University, and assisting in developing the Mayo Clinic’s medical school, initially holding associate professorship prior to chairing its Department of Biomedical Communications. He became the inaugural Hannah Professor for the History of Medicine at McMaster University in 1977, and retired in 1999. Dr. Roland passed on June 9, 2009, at the age of 76.

Dr. Roland’s research and writing produced a large corpus of work, and he was involved with various associations during his career, including the Toronto Medical History Society and the American Osler Society. Dr. Roland conducted over three hundred oral history interviews pertaining to the history of medicine in wartime, in Canada, and the formation of McMaster University’s School of Medicine. His extensive work regarding wartime medicine in particular produced two monographs about the clandestine Warsaw ghetto medical school, and the experiences of Prisoners-of-War in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. His other research interests included the medical histories of Canada and Hamilton, and Sir William Osler.

Dr. Roland’s published works include biographies of notable figures in Canadian medical history, Courage under Siege: starvation, disease, and death in the Warsaw ghetto, Long Night’s Journey into Day, bibliographies in the history of Canadian medicine, and many publications related to his research on Sir William Osler. Dr. Roland edited and/or wrote for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Clinical Cardiology, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, the Journal of Anesthesia and Analgesia, and various other medical journals.

Johanna Rabinowitz (née van der Woerd) was born in the Netherlands and, in her late twenties, came to Canada in 1954 with her sister. Despite being a qualified and registered nurse, she began her Canadian nursing career in Hamilton, Ontario as a nursing assistant at Nora-Frances Henderson Hospital (now Juravinski Hospital). She soon left this position to become a nurse at Mountain Sanatorium. She then moved to Moose Factory, Ontario, near James Bay, to work at Moose Factory General Hospital. She returned to Mountain Sanatorium one and a half years later.

In the summer of 1958, Johanna was one of two nurses who traveled to the eastern Arctic aboard the CGS C.D. Howe as members of the annual Eastern Arctic Patrol. From 1946 to 1968, the Canadian government tasked the Eastern Arctic Patrol with medically examining the Inuit inhabitants of this region, evacuating those infected with tuberculosis to southern Canada for treatment at hospitals and sanatoriums (principally Mountain Sanatorium from 1955 to 1961), and returning home those treated in southern Canada who had recovered.

Johanna later married Dr. Paul Rabinowitz, a physician at Mountain Sanatorium, and was employed with the Victorian Order of Nurses. She died on April 16, 2009 in Grimsby, Ontario at the age of 81.

The Pulse and Palette: An Art Contest is an annual contest created by the Health Sciences Library in Fall of 2023 to engage the McMaster community, and to promote the library’s Graphic Medicine initiatives. The contest invites the McMaster community to showcase their talents and engage others through expressive storytelling. Each participant of the contest submits their art digitally with a corresponding description or story relating to the art piece, which is then featured in an online exhibit where the art is voted on to win a 1st or 2nd prize. The winning art pieces are then promoted via the Health Sciences Library's newsletter "HSL Happenings" and on social media platforms.

Participants are offered the option to deposit their art in the Health Sciences Archives as part of the Pulse and Palette Art Contest collection, where the art and corresponding stories/descriptions can be preserved and made accessible for educational and research purposes.

Eugenia Pernal was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, to a successful businessman. She finished the fourth year of high school in 1939, when the war broke out. She went to the medical school in the ghetto for about three or four months before she went to the nursing school on Leszno. She finished her nursing courses within a year and received a diploma in nursing. In the meantime, she worked in Berson and Baumann Children’s Hospital on Sliska. During the massive deportations starting in July 1942, she managed to get out of the ghetto using fake Aryan papers and went to Germany as a Polish girl, where she worked for the French prisoners-of-war in a factory. She married Zygmunt Pernal after the war and settled down in Canada. She died on November 1, 2009 at Toronto Western Hospital.

Marvin Penn was born in Winnipeg on September 14, 1913, to Annie and Joseph Penn. Moving to Canada with his family in 1928, he graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in Animal Husbandry and then moved to British Columbia to learn hunting fish and mining. After returning to Winnipeg a year later, Penn worked as a fur dresser and joined the Canadian Militia.

In 1936 Penn left Winnipeg for Spain where he joined the International Brigade, serving with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and later the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion. Penn participated in four major battles as a soldier and as a first aid man before stationing with the brigade headquarters at the Karl Marx barracks in Barcelona, setting up and supervising a hospital for International Brigadiers.

Penn returned to Canada in 1939 and lived in Toronto from 1943 to 1953, working mostly in the restaurant industry before returning to Winnipeg where he worked in airplane manufacturing during World War Two.Penn worked in the insurance industry and served on the boards of Bnai Brith and Herzlia Academy. He was also a broker of his own business, Penn Agencies and was a member of the Winnipeg Real Estate Board for 35 years. Penn organized a local group for veterans of the Spanish Civil War and was heavily involved with other veteran groups around the world. In 1996, he returned to Spain with other veterans of the Spanish Civil War where he was made an honourary citizen.

Penn passed away in Winnipeg in 2001.

"Pedagogue" was a newsletter published by the Program for Educational Development. The newsletter was intended primarily for participants in the educational programs in the Health Sciences Faculty at McMaster University, though it was also received by colleagues throughout the globe.

The title of the newsletter came from the common meaning of "pedagogue" as a teacher and pedagogy referring to the study of the learning-teaching process. Both terms are derived from the root term "ped" meaning foot, and a pedagogue symbolically made footprints for learners to follow. The aim of the newsletter was to document the educational adventures of the faculty and to collectively grow in educational experiences.

The original newsletter logo was a yellow footprint with "Pedagogue" in burgundy title overtop. In 1989, the logo and layout was updated and the footprint removed. The updated logo featured the title in bold justified burgundy letters overtop of thin burgundy lines.