Chiropractic Organisations Support Cochrane Colloquium
by Dr Simon French

In October I attended the XII Cochrane Colloquium in Ottawa, Canada. The colloquium is an annual meeting of members and contributors to the Cochrane Collaboration, combining a scientific program with a busy schedule of meetings of the different Cochrane entities.

For those who don’t know of the Cochrane Collaboration, it is an international non-profit and independent organisation, dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare readily available worldwide (see www.cochrane.org). It produces and disseminates systematic reviews of healthcare interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. The major product of the Collaboration is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews which is published quarterly as part of The Cochrane Library, freely available to Australians through funding provided by the Australian Government. The Cochrane Library is available at: www.thecochranelibrary.org.

Opening the printed program book for the Colloquium, I was somewhat surprised and obviously pleased, to see on the inside cover that 32 chiropractic organisations in Canada had provided financial support for this conference. This included all the major chiropractic organisations in Canada, including the Canadian Chiropractic Association, Canadian Chiropractic Research Foundation, Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and many provincial organisations. I could not help but think of the political situation in the chiropractic profession in Australia and wonder whether similar support would be considered by Australian chiropractic organisations for next year’s Cochrane Colloquium in Melbourne.

The conference was an exciting one to be part of. Over 800 people attended from many different countries and with many different backgrounds including clinicians, researchers, policy makers and consumers. Each day consisted of an opening plenary session with dynamic international speakers. The major theme of the conference was “Bridging the Gaps” and each speaker addressed such gaps as those between research and clinical practice, between high and low income countries and between methodologists and researchers. Throughout the rest of each day there were presentations of scientific papers and workshops that dealt with different issues around health care research in general and also those that face the Cochrane Collaboration specifically.

One afternoon consisted of a “Curling Bonspeil”, which saw the two Australian teams struggle on the unfamiliar ice surface against the more favoured Canadian and Scandinavian teams. To round things off we (the Australasian Cochrane Centre) were given the stage for a handover presentation for next year’s Colloquium to be held in Melbourne. Think Atlanta Olympic games, blow up kangaroos and all! It was a spectacular multimedia presentation and there was even a special guest appearance from Steve Irwin and a larger than life-sized kangaroo.

So see you next year in Melbourne (October 22-26th 2005)! www.cochrane.org.au