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Thomas C. Chalmers Papers

 Collection
Identifier: MS C 542

Abstract

Thomas C. Chalmers, MD, clinician- scientist- teacher- administrator- entrepreneur, played a pivotal role in the scientific development of the randomized control trial and clinical trial meta-analysis. Research files, teaching materials, correspondence, publications, conference packets and notes, audiovisuals, and personal material document his life and medical career.

Dates

  • 1927-1995

Extent

32.35 Linear Feet (50 boxes)

Creator

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Restrictions

Portions of the collection are restricted according to HMD's Access to Health Information of Individuals policy. Contact the Reference Staff for information regarding access. For access to the policy and application form, please visit https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/manuscripts/phi.pdf.

Copyright and Re-use Information

Donor's copyrights were transferred to the public domain. Archival collections often contain mixed copyrights; while NLM is the owner of the physical items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. It is the user's responsibility to research and understand any applicable copyright and re-publication rights not allowed by fair use. NLM does not grant permissions to publish.

Privacy Information

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Biographical Note

Thomas C. Chalmers, MD, clinician- scientist- teacher- administrator- entrepreneur, was born in Forest Hills, New York, on December 8, 1917 and played a pivotal role in the scientific development of the randomized control trial and clinical trial meta-analysis. He attended Yale College from 1936 to 1939 as an English major and received his M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University in 1943. He spent the following year interning in medicine at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and completed his residency in 1947 at Harvard Medical Services of the Boston City Hospital.

Over the next six years he served as a part-time physician of the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory while practicing medicine in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1951 he was the principal investigator of the hepatitis treatment research unit of Harvard Medical School in Kyoto, Japan, and his military service was spent doing research as a member of the metabolic unit of the Army Medical Services Graduate School at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C. From 1955 to 1968 he was Chief of the Medical Services of the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston and Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical School, and lecturer at Harvard.

In 1968 Chalmers became head of the research and education program of the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C. After 18 months, he was appointed Associate Director for Clinical Care and Director of the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health until 1973. During these same years he also served as Professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine also in Washington, D.C.

After his tenure at NIH, he became President, Dean, and Professor of the Mount Sinai Medical Center and School of Medicine until 1983. During his time at Mount Sinai he created and developed both the Biomathamatical Sciences and the Geriatrics and Adult Development departments.

During the latter half of the 1980s he served as Distinguished Physician at the Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center. In addition, he was also a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Epidemiology at Boston University School of Medicine, and in Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

In 1993 he co-founded MetaWorks, Inc. with Susan Ross, M. D. and served as chairman of the company until his death in 1995. Metaworks, Inc. provides evidence-based medical information and is a designated Evidence-Based Practice Center. MetaWorks specializes in acquiring, synthesizing, analyzing, interpreting and delivering medical information in a way that transforms it from raw data into meaningful, actionable evidence. Chalmers' expertise was instrumental in the training of the MetaWorks scientific team, and in establishing the systems and practice standards by which MetaWorks' methods and procedures are governed.

Chalmers held memberships in a number of professional societies, including the Association of American Physicians; the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease, of which he was president in 1959; the American Gastroenterological Association, of which he was president in 1969; and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chalmers also served on review committees and advisory boards of governmental and national professional bodies, including the National Cancer Institute, National Heart and Lung Institute, National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Disease, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Research Council.

His research interests included the methodology of clinical trials; meta-analysis; clinical gastroenterology and cardiology, and geriatrics. Chalmers realized earlier in his career that many of the treatments he was taught had been disproved by clinical trials. This ultimately changed his views on medicine and led him to pioneer and promote meta-analysis during the latter half of his career through his medical practice, research, and professorial positions. He also advocated the randomized assignment of patients in studies to avoid bias in the selection of treatment. Through his studies of randomized control trials Chalmers proved that had the trials been systematically and cumulatively synthesized, important treatments such as thrombolytic therapy for myocardial infarction would have been recognized much earlier. In addition, he also demonstrated that the advice given in textbooks and reviews articles did not correspond to the current available evidence when published.

Collection Summary

Research files, teaching materials, correspondence, publications, conference packets and notes, audiovisuals, and personal material (1951-1995; 29 linear feet) document the life and medical career of Thomas C. Chalmers. Materials cover his career from Harvard Medical School to his final work with MetaWorks, Inc. The majority of the collection consists of subject files containing reports, articles, correspondence, and notes concerning his research interest in the methodology of clinical trials; meta-analysis; clinical gastroenterology and cardiology; and geriatrics. There also exists a small percentage of teaching materials in the subject files from Chalmers' various positions as lecturer and professor of medicine. The bulk of the collection spans the years 1951-1953 and 1970-1995.

The collection is organized into 6 series: Personal and Biographical; Subject Files; Hepatitis Study, Kyoto, Japan; Publications; Conferences; and Audiotapes.

Of significant interest in Series 4: Subject Files, is the material in the Linus Pauling and Vitamin C folders which contain information on Chalmers' debate with Pauling over the efficacy of Vitamin C as a cure for the common cold. These folders include debate transcripts, correspondence, and articles. Also of interest in this series is the MetaWorks Business Plan, 1993. This file folder includes correspondence and a 1993 summary of events relating to the company's inception. In addition, Series 5: Hepatitis Study, Kyoto, Japan is also significant for its documentation of Chalmers' 1951 to 1953 hepatitis study. Chalmers later used this study to disprove the common belief that long periods of bed rest were beneficial to those suffering from acute infectious hepatitis. This series includes correspondence, reports, charts, and other data relating to this study.

Abstract

Thomas C. Chalmers, MD, clinician- scientist- teacher- administrator- entrepreneur, played a pivotal role in the scientific development of the randomized control trial and clinical trial meta-analysis. Research files, teaching materials, correspondence, publications, conference packets and notes, audiovisuals, and personal material document his life and medical career.

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Provenance

Gift, Thomas C. Chalmers Centre for Systematic Reviews, 10/19/2000. Acc #2000-48.

General

Processed by
Daniel J. Lavoie II
Processing Completed
May 2004
Encoded by
Daniel J. Lavoie II and John P. Rees
Title
Finding Aid to the Thomas C. Chalmers Papers, 1927-1995
Status
Unverified Partial Draft
Author
Daniel J. Lavoie II
Date
May 2004
Language of description
English
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
Finding aid is written in English
Edition statement
1.0

Collecting Area Details

Part of the Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collection Collecting Area

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