The Dr Eric Wigglesworth Memorial Lecture is an annual, not-for-profit event. In its third year, funds raised are being used to build the Dr Eric Wigglesworth travel scholarship. This lecture is not commercially sponsored to preserve the academic rigour.
On living with Tigers: An ecological postscript
Presented by: Professor Rod McClure
In 1970, the Medical Journal of Australia published an article titled “Accidents in Australia: the need for research”. The essence of the article was summarised in the line “the commonsense approach (to injury control) and its associated folk activity can now be described as palpably ineffective and due for replacement. The author? Wigglesworth EC.
In the same year, William Haddon Jr, MD, wrote an editorial that was to become the single most important plank of the developing science of injury prevention. In the editorial Haddon outlined his famous argument that ‘transfer of energy’ is the cause of injuries and thus the prevention of injuries is achieved through, data driven, systematic approach to minimising this transfer. From the third of his ten strategies for injury prevention (ie prevent the release of energy) he derived the title of his editorial.
As safety scientists and practitioners we took the idea of energy control and ran with it. It worked. It worked so well we did not take the time to read Haddon’s editorial properly to find its complete message. Now we are left somewhat surprised to find the energy control approach seems to have led us to an impassable hole in the road. Despite strong support for the scientific approach to injury prevention, there is a clear gap in the translation of this scientific evidence to injury prevention practice.
Professor Rod McClure has medical qualifications, extensive clinical experience in emergency medicine, a PhD in injury epidemiology and specialist training in public health medicine.
Professor McClure currently holds the Monash University positions of Director, Monash Injury Research Institute, and Professor, Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Heath Sciences.
He has an adjunct appointment (Professor Extraordinarius) with the Institute of Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa.