International Clinical Trials Day - 20 May 2021

Professor Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director of the Scottish Government has a few words to support International Clinical Trials Day #ICTD2021 #InternationalClinicalTrialsDay21 on 20 May 2021.

International Clinical Trials Day is an annual event to commemorate James Lind, who in 1747 pioneered clinical research with the first ever research trial on the disease scurvy.

His trial on board the HMS Salisbury consisted of just 12 men, grouped into pairs and given a variety of dietary supplements from cider to oranges and lemons. The trial only lasted six days but, within that time, there was a noticeable improvement in the group eating the fruit, providing Lind with the evidence required of the link between citrus fruits and scurvy.

Watch the short video from Jason Leitch below:

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jason Leitch, the National Clinical Director of the Scottish Government, and I'm delighted to support the Clinical Trials Day for nurses, midwives and all other supporters of this wonderful initiative. Can you imagine a pandemic without research, without both the research leading up to it and then the astonishing amount of research that's happened during it - almost a unique set of experiences and opportunities to do science in real time.

I'm grateful to every single one of you that's taken part in both the trials that we've done during the pandemic for the pandemic, but also continuing work and research on other issues which haven't gone away or long term conditions, or addictions.

All the other things that nurse research is so crucial for, so hope you have a great day hearing about each other's work about thinking about what to do next, as we come out the other end of this. And I hope, perhaps, next year will be in person and we can celebrate both your work and your future thinking.

So have a fantastic day. I'm sorry we can't do it in real life. Cheers.