To encourage medical students to write creative narratives or scholarly essays relevant to medicine. Winning essays will be published in the Autumn issue of The Pharos.
Important Dates
Deadline for submission
Winners will be annouced
The Award
Cash awards of $1,500 for first place; $1,000 for second place; and $850 for third place.
Eligibility
Authors must be enrolled in medical schools that have an active ΑΩΑ Chapter or Association but need not be members of ΑΩΑ. However, if the author is an AΩA member, he/she must be an active member. Only one entry may be submitted per student.
Requirements
1. Essays must be written while the student is in medical school, must be the work of a single author, and must be an original work. The essay must not be offered to, or published by, any other journal or entered in any other contest prior to submission or during, the AΩA selection process.
2. The essay must be related to medicine.
3. Essays should not be fictional or written in first person, but academic/scientific in theme.
4. The essay must not exceed 15 double-spaced pages of 12-point type with minimum 1-inch margins, exclusive of reference listing. The author’s name and essay title must be on each page, and all pages must be numbered.
5. Unique references, numbered consecutively, should be limited to 20. (Reference citation of a website is not acceptable unless a site is the sole source of the information or has official academic credentials. Examples of acceptable sites are official government web pages such as that of the National Institutes of Health.)
6. The Pharos Editorial Board suggests that authors review George Orwell’s “6 Rules for Writing”.
7. Essays that are not selected as award recipients may be submitted to other contests/publications after the winners are announced on March 8, 2024.
8. Essays not meeting all requirements will not be considered.
Questions may be directed to
Questions may be directed to Libby Appel at 720-859-4149, or studentessay@alphaomegaalpha.org
All AΩA awards, fellowships, grants, and program submissions must be electronically submitted through the appropriate page on the AΩA website.
Submission
Past Student Essay Winners
Previous Winners
Begun in 1982, this award is annually awarded in June. All medical students enrolled in schools with active AΩA chapters are encouraged to apply. The purpose of this award is to encourage medical students to sit down and write well-crafted creative narratives or scholarly essays relevant to medicine.
Prizes
- First prize: $1,500
- Second prize: $1,000
- Third prize: $850
Winning essays will be published in future issues of The Pharos.
2024
• First prize – “Show me Your Scars” by Jeong Jun Kim, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Second prize tie – “The Fears and Needs of the Dying Child: The Case of Julianna Snow” by Aishwarya Gautam, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
• Second prize tie – “Remote Renaissance: Expanding Telehealth and Provider Incentives in Rural Areas” by Kathleen Warner, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Third prize – “Perseverance and Passion: The Road to Being a Woman in Neurosurgery” by Evangeline Bambakidis, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
2023
- First prize – “The Words We Use Matter” by Mary (Molly) Fessler, University of Michigan Medical School
- Second prize – “Pathway Programs: A Promising Pipeline to Diversity and Equity for Tomorrow’s Physicians” by Ben Rhee, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
- Third prize tie – “What TikTok Teaches: Women’s Health and Medical Misinformation on TikTok” by Madelaine McElrath, New York Medical College
- Third prize tie – “Automation of Medicine: The Intersection of Healthcare and Artificial Intelligence” by Nitin Nadella, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
- Third prize tie – “Chronic Pain: An Invisible Disease in Western Biomedicine” by Allison Yan, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
2022
- First prize: “Yellow Plague in America: the intersections of disease, social determinants and discrimination” by Rebecca Chen, Baylor College of Medicine
- Second prize: “The Silent Pandemic: Told & Untold Stories of Mental Health in a COVID-19 World” by Geetanjali Rajamani, University of Minnesota Medical School
- Third prize: “Sociomedicine: Explanations for Race Disparities in Infant Mortality” by Adrienne Simmons, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
2021
- First prize: “Historic Context & Communication: Undoing Medical Mistrust” by Olivier Joseph, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
- Second prize: “Health Care’s Carbon Footprint” by Preethi Kesavan, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
- Third prize: “Respect” by Jaclyn Arvedon, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University
2020
- First prize: “If Dementia Comes for Me” by David Ney, Sidney Kimmel Medical College
- Second prize: “Just the Honey” by Gillian Stein, New York University School of Medicine
- Third prize: “Hair and Its Stories” by Jesse Perdily, New York University School of Medicine
2019
- First prize: “The Price of Pills: A Brief History of the Kefauver-Harris Amendment” by Reid Wilkening, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine
- Second prize: “The Louse Manifesto” by Prisca Alilio, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
- Third prize: “Don Ze Pill” by Rebecca Grossman-Kahn, University of Michigan Medical School“Historic Context & Communication: Undoing Medical Mistrust” by Olivier Joseph, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
All AΩA awards, fellowships, grants, and program submissions must be electronically submitted through the appropriate page on the AΩA website.
