The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Alberta, NWT & Nunavut Professorship in Stroke Research: Dr. Michael Hill

Dr. Michael Hill’s background is in neurology and clinical epidemiology. Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and wellness of populations. Using the information gathered, interventions can be made to improve public health and preventive medicine.

Currently Dr. Hill collects and analyzes data collected from different hospitals to study trends in stroke occurrence and treatment. Using this data he can study these trends and suggest policies and procedures that may assist doctors in more effectively treating their patients.

Along with his epidemiology studies Dr. Hill is conducting clinical trials to test new ways to treat stroke patients. In clinical trials doctors move the research out of the lab and into the hospital. This is an opportunity for doctors to test new drugs or new procedures on real patients. The results have real implication on patient care and can often be deduced in a relatively short period of time.

One of the clinical trials Dr. Hill is conducting includes two groups of consenting patients who have had a stroke. One group receives a drug that is used in the treatment of strokes and the second group receives a placebo. Data is collected from each group and compared. If the results indicate that the drug is effective at treating stroke patients then the use of that drug will become standard practice.

Standard practices are a set of guidelines that instruct physicians on the best possible way to treat specific conditions. They ensure all patients have access to the same quality of care.

Another clinical trial that Dr. Hill is engaged with involves interventional management and is more invasive as it requires endovascular surgery. Dr. Hill is testing groups of patients to see if a surgical procedure, in which catheters are used to open the blocked artery, is used in conjunction with specific medications works better than using the medications alone.

Epidemiology, both observational epidemiology and interventional epidemiology (clinical trials), is important work for Dr. Hill because it has an immediate impact on patient care. Treatment is adapted to the patient’s response, and the outcomes of his research are used in implementing standard of care in hospitals around the world.

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