The Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest asks medical and nursing students to engage in a reflective writing exercise that illustrates an experience where they or a healthcare team member worked to ensure that humanism was at the core of care.
For the 2021 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest, medical and nursing students were asked to use the following quote as inspiration to reflect on when they’ve experienced or observed, as an individual or as a team (doctors, nurses, therapists, etc.), the impact of human connection:
“We’ll observe how the burdens braved by humankind
Are also the moments that make us humans kind;
Let each morning find us courageous, brought closer;
Heeding the light before the fight is over.
When this ends, we’ll smile sweetly, finally seeing
In testing times, we became the best of beings.”
– Excerpt from “The Miracle of Morning,” by Amanda Gorman
2021 Essay Contest Winners
2021 Medical Student Winners
First Place | “Dear Reader”
Ross Perry
University of California, Davis School of Medicine
Read the essay in Academic Medicine
Second Place | “Motherhouse”
Davy Ran
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Read the essay in Academic Medicine
Third Place | “Someone Else’s Mother”
Fletcher Bell
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Read the essay in Academic Medicine
2021 Nursing Student Winners
First Place | “New Constellations”
Hunter Marshall
University of New Mexico College of Nursing
Read the essay in Academic Medicine
Second Place | “Nurses Encounter Diversity”
Anna Swartzlander
University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing
Read the essay in Academic Medicine
Third Place | “Empty Beds”
Jessica Grey
University of Massachusetts, Amherst College of Nursing
Read the essay in Academic Medicine
2021 Honorable Mentions
- Rebekah Boyd, fourth year, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, “Bound Together”
- Michaele Francesco Corbisiero, second year, University of Colorado School of Medicine, “Through the Partition: Medical Care in Detention Centers”
- Levi Brice Edouna Obama, fourth year, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, “Vox”
- Benjamin Elliott, second year, Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of Pikeville, “Cerumen and Cisplatin”
- Kristopher Jackson, nurse practitioner and PhD candidate, University of New Mexico School of Nursing, “Empathy and Expletives”
- Jenna Nowlin, second-year master’s student, Regis College, Young School of Nursing, “Untitled”
- Bharat Sanders, fourth year, Medical College of Georgia, “Taking Back Our Empathy:
- Reflections on a New Model of Medical Education”
- Yichi Zhang, Tulane University School of Medicine, “Smile”
- Brian Zhao, third year, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, “Untitled”
- Eleanor Wade, fourth year, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, “Nightshift”