Presidential Medal Lecture 2023/2024
Thursday, 15 February 2024
Room 402, Suttie Centre
PRESIDENT’S MEDAL LECTURE – 2023/2024:
HOW DO WE KNOW CONTRACEPTIVES ARE SAFE?
15 February 2024
Professor Philip Hannaford, Emeritus Professor of Primary Care, University of Aberdeen.
Professor Hannaford graduated from Aberdeen University in 1981 and trained as a general practitioner in Sheffield. His research career began at the Royal College of General Practitioner's Manchester Research Unit in 1985.
He developed his love for epidemiology whilst working on the RCGP Oral Contraception Study- now 56-years old and one of the largest cohort studies in the world assessing the safety of the contraceptive pill. He returned to Aberdeen in 1997 to lead research within Academic Primary Care, much of it related to women's health issues. He was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017 and became Professor Emeritus in 2020.
He has provided advice to the World Health Organization about different aspects of contraceptive safety, and he sits on its Guideline Steering Group for Evidence-based Contraceptive Guidelines. He is currently chair of the Medicines for Women's Health Expert Advisory Group of the Commission on Human Medicines.
This talk will explore some of the challenges faced when trying to assess the safety of contraceptives, and discuss methods used to overcome these issues.