David Lawrence Sackett OC FRSC (November 17, 1934 – May 13, 2015) was an American-Canadian physician and a pioneer in evidence-based medicine.
David Sackett made seminal contributions to the science of health care and the teaching and practice of medicine.
In addition, his "debunking" trials showed the futility of traditional health education in helping hypertensive patients take their medicine, and that a popular "bypass" operation for stroke-prone individuals did more harm than good.
He repeated his residency in medicine some 20 years after first training because, although a professor in medical school, he 'wasn't a good enough doctor.
David Sackett is widely regarded as one of 3 "fathers" of modern clinical epidemiology (along with Archie Cochrane of the UK and Alvan Feinstein of the USA).
In the late 1970s, Sackett began to popularize the use of clinical epidemiologic principles in the practice of medicine and other health care disciplines, working with his former students, Brian Haynes, Peter Tugwell, Gordon Guyatt and eventually many other clinician scientists at McMaster University and around the world.
Initially termed "critical appraisal of the medical literature", to help practitioners keep up with scientific advances in health care, this became "evidence-based medicine".