Figure 3, from my 2013 Hum Reprod Update systematic review of adjuvant acupuncture for IVF. Trials with lower control group rates of clinical pregnancy showed benefits of adding acupuncture. Trials with higher control group rates of clinical pregnancy showed no benefits. With acupuncture, one size may not fit all.
Besides Epidemiology, my other passion is yoga / fitness
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I was born in 1969 at Boston, Massachusetts. I graduated with a BA degree in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in 1992. I graduated with an MS degree in Epidemiology from University of Maryland (UMD) Baltimore, in 1997. Starting in 1997, I worked for five years as the coordinator and methodologist of the Baltimore (UMD, Baltimore)/Providence (Brown University)/US Cochrane center under the supervision of Kay Dickersin. I moved from Baltimore to Providence in 1999, with the relocation of the Cochrane Center. At the Cochrane center, I oversaw multiple projects related to clinical trial identification and registration, including the development of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, which is the most comprehensive database of trials in the world. I coordinated and wrote the Cochrane Center's Annual Reports, Monitoring Reports for the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group, and reports to Cochrane Center funding agencies, including the US National Institutes of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control. I served as Cochrane Center coordinator/methodologist during the time that Center funding increased from a single contract of $50,000, covering only the MEDLINE Retagging Project (through 2001), to multiple grants totaling over $5 million (beginning in 2002), while also being a PhD candidate at Brown University. In late 2002, I moved back to Baltimore to coordinate the activities of the UMD Baltimore-based Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field ('CAM Field'), from 2003-2014. To establish and develop the Cochrane CAM Field infrastructure, some activities included: developed the CAM Field register of trials and the CAM Field 'Topics List' of Cochrane CAM-related reviews; coordinated and wrote all Monitoring Reports for the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group and reports to the US NIH/NCCAM funding agency; coordinated summaries of CAM-related Cochrane Reviews for the lay public; coordinated review panel for a CAM Field bursary scheme with Professor David Moher. During 2006, I conceived and wrote a competitively reviewed NIH grant application which resulted in the award of a 5-year, $2.1 million USD grant to support the activities of the Cochrane CAM Field, from 2007-2012. During 2011, I conceived and wrote another competitively reviewed NIH grant application, which resulted in the award of a 5-year, $3 million USD grant to continue the support of the activities of the Cochrane CAM Field. In 2006, I began working under the supervision of Professor Lex Bouter, in preparing a systematic review of acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2007. In 2008, I was admitted as a PhD candidate in Medicine, at VU University Medical Center, under the supervision of Professors Lex Bouter and Daniëlle van der Windt. Sir Iain Chalmers provided guidance and reviews during the final year of my thesis. I was awarded a PhD on 7 November 2013. Following a sabbatical in 2014 to work on a systematic review on the paleolithic diet for metabolic syndrome (published in Am J Clin Nutr in 2015) and an analysis of alteplase for stroke (published in BMJ in 2015), I started at EBSCO's DynaMed physician point-of-care system. Over the next 3.5 years, I critically appraised and summarized systematic reviews including approximately 900 Cochrane reviews. In December 2018, I took on the role of EBSCO EBM Editor where I prepared evidence-based patient decision aids. I left EBSCO in June of 2020 to start my Evidence Based Patient Decision Aids LLC (EbPDAs), a venture with a former colleague with the specific aim of producing evidence summaries for PDAs. |