Dalla Lana School of Public Health

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The Jim Ruderman Lecture on Leadership and Innovation is held annually in honour of Dr. Ruderman (1950-2015), a much-loved and respected physician who served in leadership roles as Chief of Staff (2006-2013) and Family Physician in Chief (1992-2014) during his career at Women’s College Hospital. Additionally, Dr. Ruderman was a valued faculty member (1981-2015) with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Ruderman is remembered for mentoring generations of physicians in their early careers and inspiring many to champion change across the health care system.​​​​​​​

This year’s lecture will be delivered by Professor Trish Greenhalgh. Dr. Greenhalgh will be presenting on “Science in the public eye.” The pandemic thrust science and scientists into the spotlight and raised awkward questions about the relationship between scientific research, policymakers and citizens. Professor Trish Greenhalgh’s lecture will use one example – the contested field of research on public masking – to illustrate some theoretical ideas about science and science communication in these post-truth times. It will explore why, more than two years into the pandemic and with hundreds of published studies, some scientists still believe there is “no evidence” that masks work while others view the efficacy of masking as a well-established “fact”– and why debates between the different “camps” of scientists played out more on social media and in the lay press than in scientific journals. To analyze this case study, Dr. Greenhalgh will draw on the work of critical social scientists such as Latour, Bourdieu and Foucault, and also philosophers of science including Kuhn and the pragmatists.

Trish Greenhalgh is Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences and Fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford. She leads a program of research at the interface between the social sciences and medicine, working across primary and secondary care. Her work seeks to celebrate and retain the traditional and the humanistic aspects of medicine and healthcare while also embracing contemporary science and technology to improve health outcomes. Three key interests include health equity; innovation; and the links between research, policy and practice. She has brought this interdisciplinary perspective to bear on the research response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Greenhalgh was awarded the OBE for Services to Medicine by Her Majesty the Queen in 2001and made a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2014. She is also a Fellow of the UK Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners, Faculty of Clinical Informatics and Faculty of Public Health.

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