[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/cook_deborah02.jpg” caption=”Deborah Cook”]Deborah J. Cook, MD, has received the American College of Critical Care Medicine's (ACCM) highest honor, the 2006 Distinguished Investigator Award. The award honors a clinical researcher for meritorious and pioneering research in critical care and for significantly contributing to the understanding of diseases and treatments of critically ill and injured patients.

A well-known scientific researcher, “Dr. Cook's research focused on the risk factors for critical illness, prevention of ICU-acquired illness and complications, life support technology, ethics and end-of-life choices for critically ill patients,” said Stephen Pastores, MD, who nominated Cook for the award.

“Dr. Cook has been an outstanding and innovative clinical researcher with excellent contributions in advancing the literature and practice of critical care medicine, especially with her research work on the prevention of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients.”

For eight years, Cook has chaired the Canadian Critical Care Trials, which are the most productive national ICU research consortium in the world. The trials group has published more than 40 articles in the top general medical and specialty journals on the best methods to diagnose, prevent, treat and palliate critical illness.

Cook is a professor of medicine and clinical epidemiology and biostatistics, and co-chair of the Evidence-based Practice Centre at McMaster University, the director of general internal medicine and ICU clinical effectiveness and outcomes research at St. Joseph's Hospital, Hamilton, and the academic chair of critical care medicine at McMaster University and St. Joseph's Healthcare. Dr. Cook holds the McMaster University/ St. Joseph's Healthcare Regional Academic Chair in Critical Care Medicine.

Cook was the first intensivist formally trained in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics in Canada, and was the first Canadian to become a consulting editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).