In this blog-post, Rebecca John, Research Scientist at the
South Asian Cochrane Centre, recounts her experiences of organizing and
participating in The 22nd Cochrane Colloquium held at Hyderabad,
India.
 |
| Rebecca John (holding bouquet) at the closing ceremony of the 22nd Cochrane Colloquium. Rebecca is flanked on her right (farthest to nearest) by Ajay Tripathy, Prathap Tharyan and Anna Joseph; and on her left by Jabez Paul Barnabas, Richard Kirubakaran, Venkatesh Parthasarathy, and Samuel Victor |
Where it all began for me:
It was a little over a year
ago that I responded to an advertisement for the post of Research Scientist for
the Effective Health Care Research
Consortium that was published by the South Asian Cochrane Network and Centre (SASIANCC),
hosted at the Professor BV Moses Centre for Evidence-Informed Health Care and
Health Policy at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. Dr Prathap Tharyan,
the Director of the Centre, was by no means a stranger and having sat through
many sessions by him during my Public Health course, I was eager to step into
the world of ‘Cochrane’!
One of the first conversations I recall having with Dr
Prathap after applying for the job (and before actually being
selected), was of him telling me about this ‘great’ event called the Colloquium
coming up the following year and that the SASIANCC would be hosting it. He went
on to say, “If you get the job, you would be required to spend about 10 days in
Hyderabad in September 2014.” I can still remember thinking to myself, “I have
no idea what a ‘Colloquium’ is!”; and “I am going to have to leave my kids, but
I've never been away from them for so long!”
My next stop: laptop….googled
the word ‘Colloquium’ and consulted Wikipedia, my trusted fount of knowledge, so I now knew what a Colloquium was. I eventually found my way to the 21st Colloquium website,
saw a lot of photos online from the Quebec Colloquium, heard stories from
colleagues who has been there, and thought to myself, “This looks like a whole lot
of fun!”
The actual experience:
The first step towards
gearing up for the 22nd
Cochrane Colloquium was a trip by the SASIANCC team to Hyderabad in October
2013 to look at the venue in more detail and also to find the best possible
accommodation for varying budgets. After the trip, each of the team members was
allocated a role as part of the local organising committee. I was given the
task of helping out with registration and accommodation. A bit daunting at
first, but with the help and support of other team members it turned out to be
a great experience!
With the start of
registration on 3rd of March 2014, it was like the floodgates had
opened…we had the usually starting hiccups but within in a few days we were all
working together and had things up and running like a well-oiled machine !
***
The last two weeks….Before we
knew it September had crept upon us and the mood at SASIANCC was something
similar to that at Santa’s residence the night before Christmas! Everyone was
hard at the tasks assigned to them; with no time for chit chat or even coffee breaks.
We all had but one goal in mind and that was to make the 22nd
Cochrane Colloquium a memorable one for ALL
our delegates.
My personal highlights:
On a personal note, it being
my first Colloquium ever… was that it was a memorable one. It started off with
the Evidence
Aid Symposium, and an opportunity to finally meet up with many of the
lovely people I had been emailing over the past few months. By the end of the third day I guess the
Cochrane Colloquium spirit just took hold; meeting up over coffee or lunch with
people from various centres and groups was all too exciting!!
 |
| Rebecca with Jini Hetherington (Also in the picture are Ruban Das, and Anna Joseph (partly hidden behind Jini). |
From a professional point, it
was really great to meet people who have been involved with Cochrane in various
capacities; some newcomers like me, and some who had been giving of their time
and talents to the Collaboration for decades.
What struck me most was that
Cochrane is all about networking, and in reality Cochrane is truly a
‘Collaboration’ of people who are NOT trying to getting ahead of others (like
so many other professional bodies!!) but of those trying to work across
geographical and cultural borders for ‘Trusted
evidence, Informed decisions & Better health'.
The 2nd Annual
Cochrane Lecture ‘Evidence-based
Medicine and The Cochrane Collaboration: a McMaster perspective’ delivered
by Professor Gordon Guyatt was in all senses the highlight for me. Prof Guyatt kept the
delegates not only engaged but thoroughly interested for a whole hour.
Looking back:
Now looking back it seems
like a dream.. and all too soon the curtains fell on the 22nd Cochrane
Colloquium... with a thrilling Bollywood Dance-off (where I put on my dancing shoes after a break of 20-odd years!) serving as a fitting finale. But, while it felt so good, I also felt
a sadness come over me as it was time to say goodbye to the many lovely people
I had met.
On a positive note, I walked
away inspired, enthused and motivated to strive harder to ensure that the ‘Not just evidence but the right evidence’
gets out there!
Auf Wiedersehen & Wir sehen uns in Wien !!
Rebecca John
(E-mail:rebeccajoyce7@gmail.com)
NB: Readers may wish to also read a publication co-authored by Rebecca and based on a poster presented at the 22nd Cochrane Colloquium:
Representation of women as editors in the Cochrane Collaboration published in the Journal of Evidence Based Medicine (doi:10.1111/jebm.12123).
Prathap Tharyan
