William Walker Lecture

Prof William Farquhar Walker, DSc ChM, FRCS, FRS(E), was an experienced innovative cardiovascular surgeon, pioneering new surgical techniques both by himself and with his colleague Sir Ian Hill (Cardiac surgeon who refined the ECG). In 1965, William Walker and Ian Hill reported experience of 652 operations on the heart, 401 for rheumatic heart disease of the mitral and aortic valves and 251 for congenital heart disease.  In time, dwindling numbers of suitable patients and the need for centralising expertise for more complex recurrent cases led to open heart surgery ceasing in Dundee. However Prof Walker went on to become an international figure in the field of peripheral vascular disease. He established with Dr Vance Spence the first vascular laboratory in the UK (now all major hospitals have these), and was elected President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1984. One of his major contributions was an Illustrated Atlas of Peripheral Vascular Disease in 1980 when such items were rare and extremely valuable. This went on to a second edition in because of its popularity. Prof Walker died on Jan 15th 2009. His wife, Bettie, set up this lecture fund in memory of a pioneering vascular researcher. The initial lectures were focussed on vascular disease, recently the lecture remit was broadened to include cardiac disease.

Host, Professor Jill Belch, is pleased to announce that this year’s speaker is Professor Mark Woodward. Mark’s lecture “Sex and gender sensitivities in cardiovascular research” will take place as part of the Grand Rounds slot on Thursday 11th July in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre between 13:00-14:00 with refreshments thereafter in the Ian Lowe Centre. Mark, PhD FMedSci FAHMS FESC, is Chair of Statistics, Epidemiology and Women’s Health at Imperial College London, Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of New South Wales, Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford University and Honorary Professor at the universities of Dundee, Mahidol (Thailand) and the West Indies. Mark is the author of 900 peer-reviewed publications, 20 of which have over 1000 citations, and two text-books on statistical methods in medical research. He has been named amongst the world’s most citied researchers in each of the 10 years since the current ranking system started in 2014. Mark has undertaken 24 development aid missions in Africa and Asia and served on the governing councils of both the Institute of Statisticians and the Royal Statistical Society. His previous professorships have been at the University of Oxford, New York University, the University of Sydney, and as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. He specialises in the design and analysis of sex/gender-disaggregated data, with over 120 publications in this field.

Location

Wolfson Lecture Theatre
Ninewells Hospital Level 7