Dacie–Wilkinson lecture: a collaboration between the College and the British Society for Haematology

Background

This lecture was first established in memory of Sir John Dacie, the fourth President of the College between 1972 and 1975. It was allocated to a conference organised by the British Society for Haematology, with the first lecture given in 2007 by Dr Trevor Baglin. The lecture has now been retitled as the Dacie–Wilkinson lecture, in memory of Dr John Wilkinson.

Sir John Dacie

Sir John Vivian Dacie, FRS (20 July 1912–12 February 2005) was born in Putney and was educated at King's College Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1936. After war service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, he became a senior lecturer and by 1956 was a professor at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. He was a pioneer in the field of haemolytic anaemias. He also discovered and named Christmas disease. He was an expert in the laboratory diagnosis of the various forms of leukaemia and he founded the Leukaemia Research Fund in 1960. He was founder and editor of the British Journal of Haematology and was appointed President of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1977.

John Wilkinson

John Frederick ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson FRCP FRIC (10 June 1897–13 August 1998) was born in Oldham. In 1913, he began to study chemistry at the University of Manchester but was interrupted by war service. He graduated in 1920 with a first-class honours BSc, followed by a PhD in 1923. He then studied medicine, qualifying in 1928, and proceeded to an MD in 1931. Experience of the effects of mustard gas in WWI suggested to him that nitrogen mustard might be effective against bone marrow cancers. During the 1940s, he pioneered research in chemotherapy for leukaemia, Hodgkin's disease and polycythaemia. He was a co-founder, with Leslie John Witts, of the British Society for Haematology (BSH).

The 2022 Dacie–Wilkinson lecture

During the College’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, this lecture was delivered in April by Dr Wai Keong Wong at the British Society for Haematology Conference in Manchester. The lecture was introduced by Dr Adele Fielding, BSH President and Dr Lance Sandle, RCPath Registrar. Dr Wong is a consultant haematologist and is the Chief Research Information Officer at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is responsible for the digital aspects of clinical trials, making routinely collected clinical data available for research and identifying opportunities for using electronic health record systems as a form of health intervention. He is the co-founder of the Interoperability Education Summit and was the inaugural chair of the Chief Clinical Informatics Officer leaders’ network. In 2016, he was a core member of the highly influential Wachter review into the state of NHS digitisation in secondary care. More recently, he has explored the world of data science research in the areas of machine learning in transfusion and natural language processing. During the course of the lecture, Dr Wong shared his observations on upcoming changes in digital healthcare and the data science landscape in the NHS and made recommendations on how we can thrive as a profession in the coming years. The full recording of this lecture will be made available via the RCPath and BSH websites.