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Sunday 30 June 2019

European cooperation on healthcare discussed at FPM-HPT conference at Erasmus University in Rotterdam

European cooperation is crucial for providing the highest possible quality of healthcare for the ~740 million citizens on the continent. Innovations in European healthcare also have a vital impact on global health.
Many international organizations and institutes participate in European projects and initiatives on research, clinical care and health policy to achieve health goals that would be unattainable when operating solely within one’s own country.
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Donald Singer, Carin Uyl-de Groot, Marlies Wijsenbeek, Liese Barbier, Ken Redekop and Lytske Bakker
There are also funding, ethical and political challenges to effective European cooperation on healthcare, including an impending possible Brexit. 

The latest Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine conference was held at Erasmus University in Rotterdam in the Netherlands on 21st June 2019 to consider European Cooperation on Healthcare. The aim was to provide a forum for discussing best practice across the above key healthcare domains.

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Donald Singer, Ron de Winter, Marjan Hummel, Marcus Guardian, Lytske Bakker and Ken Redekop
The conference was jointly hosted by the FPM’s Elsevier-published journal Health Policy and Technology and the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management (ESHPM), with as local organisers Associate Professor Ken Redekop (HPT Editor-in-Chief) and researcher Lytske Bakker (HPT Commissioning Editor).

Content from the meeting will appear in the HPT journal as Editorials, commentaries, review articles and Meet the Expert reports, with associated short video interviews with speakers posted on the HPT and FPM websites.

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Poster prize winner Vivian Reckers-Droog with Ken Redokop (L) and Donald Singer
Ron de Winter from the Department of Epidemiology at the University Medical Center in Utrecht, The Netherlands discussed combating multi-drug bacterial resistance in the multi-country European COMBACTE public-private partnership.

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Poster presenters and European Reference Network Project Managers Olivia Spivack and Renée de Ruiter.
Barbara Pierscionek, Associate Dean for Research at Nottingham Trent University discussed ethical and legal challenges when developing joint programmes involving European cooperation on healthcare. Issues include maintaining confidentiality when sharing real world data within Registries and other Big health Data.

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Pharmacist Liese Barbier, European Medicines Agency, discussed European Medicines Agency perspectives on regulating biosimilars. She stressed the importance of batch-level information when reporting any suspected adverse drug reactions from biosimilars or corresponding biological medicines.
Jorge Gonzalez, Spain, spoke on the EU funding supported inDemand model now operating in Spain, France and Finland, with additional network partners throughout Europe. InDemand makes a virtue of needs-driven rather than technology-driven project commissioning as a more reliable approach to ensuring adoption of new approaches into clinical practice. Examples included mobile health applications to reduce weight in obese children and e-health systems to support management of women in pregnancy.
Marcus Guardian, CEO of EUnetHTA, The European Network for Health Technology Assessment discussed his organisation’s role in cross-border assessment of health technology.

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Ines Hernando from the EURORDIS-Rare Diseases Europe organization discussed the initial impact of the 2017 European Reference Network Directive to improve the care of the ~ 30 million patients in Europe with rare diseases. The new European Reference Networks are already providing virtual common rare disease management support platforms for health professionals across the European region.
Marjan Hummel from Philips in Einthoven discussed early health technology assessment in the medical device industry and resulting international implications for streamlining development of new health technologies.

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Zoltan Kalo, Professor of Health Economics at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest discussed ways to improve equity in allocation of healthcare research funds by the European Union. Currently there appears to be a disproportionate allocation of EU research awards to EU15 countries. This both disadvantages research capacity development in EU13 countries and leads to a ‘brain drain’ of researchers from EU13 to EU15 research centres.

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Local host Ken Redekop, Editor-in-Chief of the FPM’s Elsevier-published Health Policy and Technology journal, discussed themes and opportunities for publication in the journal on topics from across the diagnostics/drugs/devices/e-health spectrum complemented by papers on health technology adoption and associated health policy implications.



Donald Singer, President, Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, London discussed engaging with European health policy makers, including new networking opportunities between health professional and patient and consumer organisations and EU institutions such as the European Medicines Agency.


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 Carin Uyl-De Groot, head of health technology assessment at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management in Rotterdam discussed sustainability and affordability of innovative drugs. She described discussion with European policy makers on ways to reduce the cost of expensive biological treatments. Developing cross-border partnerships would create much greater bargaining power for purchasing medicines. For example, the EU region currently provides 40% of the market for most pharmaceuticals.

Respiratory physician Marlies Wijsenbeek from the Erasmus Medical Centre discussed patient registry development to improve management of and research into rare lung diseases, based on her work on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. She noted the potential value of developing cross-border patient registries for rare diseases, to ensure larger patient populations then possible within individual countries. She also illustrated some of the challenges, e.g. when common data sets are not agreed and when the same patients may feature within different registries.



Wednesday 20 February 2019

Freshness, wonder and passion: enter the international Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine: deadline 1st March 2019

Hippocrates Young Poets Prize deadline – midnight on 1st March

Entries remain open for The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine – an international prize for a single unpublished poem in English on a medical theme from young poets aged 14-18 years from anywhere in the world.

Entries are free for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine
The award for the winner is £500 (~ USD 670).

The length of the poem should be not more than 50 lines of text in addition to the title and any line breaks. The 2019 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is supported by healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust.  The charity has a particular interest in avoiding preventable heart disease through educating the young.

Enter online, by email or post for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Young Poet entrants should be aged 14 – 18 years old on the closing date for entries – 1st March 2019 – entrants can be from anywhere in the world. There have already been entries for the 2019 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize from 11 countries: Argentina, Australia, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, Nigeria, Scotland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.

Short-listed and commended poets will be notified in early April. Winners of the Hippocrates Young Poet Prize and the FPM-Hippocrates Awards will be announced at the 2019 Hippocrates Awards Ceremony, which will be hosted by the Centre for Life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England.
Heart charity patron Leslie Morgan OBE DL said: “The CVRT is delighted to have such international interest in the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize. The CVRT is also grateful that the 2019 Hippocrates Awards Ceremony will be held at the Centre for Life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK at the 10th annual international Hippocrates conference on poetry and medicine, which is being jointly organised by the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine and the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.
New Zealand poet and novelist Elizabeth Smither will judge the Hippocrates international Young Poet Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Elizabeth Smither said: “Young poets have something that old poets don’t. Freshness, wonder, passion before the difficulty of being a poet is fully understood. No fear at looking at the blank page or blank screen. The whole world of words at their feet.”
With a prize fund of £5500 for winning poems in the Open International category and international health professional category, and £500 for the international Young Poets Award, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.
Judges for the 2019 Hippocrates international Open Prize and Health Professional Prize (deadline 14th February) are UK journalist and broadcaster Kate Adie CBE, DL; American-Mexican poet and novelist Jennifer Clement, International President of PEN International; and physician Professor Dame Jane Dacre, who is immediate past-president of the UK Royal College of Physicians in London and a Professor of Medical Education. Jennifer Clement said: “When science and poetry come together this often creates great literature.”
Co-organiser Donald Singer said: “We are delighted to have such a distinguished panel of judges for the 2019 Hippocrates Prize. We are also grateful that the 2019 Hippocrates Awards Ceremony will be hosted by the Centre for Life in Newcastle in partnership with the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.”
Centre Director Professor Sinéad Morrissey added: “The Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts is delighted to co-host this important international poetry prize – one which is growing in status and reputation each year, making vital contributions to both fields of knowledge.”
Co-organiser Michael Hulse said: “Our tenth anniversary year promises to be one of real distinction, and we look forward eagerly to reading the poems that take this year’s prizes and commendations.”
The International Hippocrates Prize is awarded in three categories:
– a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the FPM-Hippocrates Open category, which anyone in the world may enter. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Open category
– a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional category, which is open to Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations anywhere in the world involved in education and training of health professional students and staff. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Health Professional category
– a £500 award for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entries are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. There are further commendations in the Young Poets category. There is no entry fee for the Young Poets prize.
The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.
Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize contact +44 7494 450805  or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Support for the 2019 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize
The 2019 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is supported by the Cardiovascular Research Trust, a healthy heart charity founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation. The charity has a particular interest in avoiding preventable heart disease through educating school students.

The 2019 FPM-Hippocrates Open Awards and FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional Awards are supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The FPM, founded in 1918,  is a UK medical society which publishes the international journals the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.
2019 Hippocrates Judges
The 2019 Hippocrates Awards judging panel includes BBC journalist Kate Adie from the UK, US-Mexican poet and novelist Jennifer Clement, and past-president of the UK Royal College of Physicians Professor Dame Jane Dacre, for the International Open and International Health Professional categories; and, for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize, poet and novelist Elizabeth Smither from New Zealand.
Kate Adie became a familiar figure through her work as BBC Chief News Correspondent. She is the long-serving presenter of Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and a presenter or contributor to many other radio and television programmes. She has served as a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction, now the Bailey’s, and the Whitbread, now the Costa Prize, and recently, the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Kate was honoured with a Bafta Fellowship in 2018 and received a CBE in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Other awards include: Royal Television Society Reporter of the Year 1980, for her coverage of the SAS end to the Iranian Embassy siege; Winner, 1981 & 1990, Monte Carlo International Golden Nymph Award; The Richard Dimbleby BAFTA Award 1990.
Jennifer Clement is the President of PEN International and the first woman to be elected as its President in 100 years. Under her leadership the PEN International Women’s Manifesto was created. Clement has published four books of poetry including The Next Stranger (with an introduction by W.S. Merwin). She is the author of A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen and Gun Love.  She also wrote the acclaimed memoir Widow Basquiat on New York City in the 1980’s and the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Her books have been translated into 30 languages. She is the recipient of the Canongate Prize, Sara Curry Humanitarian Award, the Gran Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Fellowship, and her books have twice been a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book.  Prayers for the Stolen was both a PEN/Faulkner Prize and Femina Prize finalist. Her recent novel Gun Love is an Oprah Book Club Selection as well as being a National Book Award finalist. She lives in Mexico City.
Elizabeth Smither has published 18 collections of poetry. She was New Zealand’s Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, and was awarded an Hon DLitt by Auckland University and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2008. She also writes novels, journals and short stories, and is widely published in Australia, Britain and USA. She was awarded the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize in 2016 and her most recent poetry collection, Night Horse, won the Ockham NZ Book Award for poetry in 2018.
Professor Dame Jane Dacre DBE, MD, FRCP is a UK consultant rheumatologist and Professor of Medical Education. She is the immediate past president of the London Royal College of Physicians and was vice chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities, Director of University College of London Medical School, MD of MRCPUK and academic VP of the RCP. She is the lead for the DHSC independent review into the gender pay gap in medicine, and the President of the Medical Protection Society. She won the medicine and healthcare category 2012 of Women in the City Woman of Achievement Award; was named on the HSJ inaugural list of 50 inspirational women in healthcare in 2013; was named in the science and medicine category for people of influence Debrett’s 500 in 2015, 2016 and 2017; and was named on the HSJ top 100 list from 2014 to 2017.
Organisers of the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. His latest book of poems, Half-Life (2013), was named a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.

Tuesday 12 February 2019

Still time to submit an abstract for the EACPT Congress in Sweden: 29th June to 2nd July 2019

The next EACPT Congress will be held from 29th June to 2nd July in 2019 in Stockholm as a partnership between the EACPT and the Swedish Society for Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 

The Congress will address Tomorrow’s Healthcare Challenges and will be held at the City Conference Centre – 5 minutes from Stockholm Central Station.

Abstract closing date extended to 14th March.

Register online 

The Congress Reception on the evening of Saturday 29th June, will be held at Stockholm City Hall, the venue of the Nobel Prize banquet.

The Keynote Opening Lecture will be given by the President at the Karolinska Institute, Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, on global health and clinical pharmacology.

Around 60 invited speakers are expected from throughout Europe and beyond. Congress keynote lectures, sessions and themes will include:
  • Advanced therapies
  • Chronic disease
  • Clinical pharmacologists versus computers
  • Closing the money gap
  • Drug regulation in the 2020’s
  • EACPT meets Asian Societies
  • EPHAR-EACPT joint symposium on personalised medicine
  • Ethics in clinical research
  • Global Health
  • How to become a clinical pharmacologist
  • How to measure drug exposure
  • How to measure drug use
  • How to perform a health economic study
  • Interprofessional exchange for better drug treatment
  • Misuse of medicines
  • Patient empowerment
  • Preparing tomorrow’s prescribers
  • Prescribing and deprescribing
  • Targeting small populations
  • The critically ill patient
  • Treating ageing populations
  • Treating cancer
  • Treating children
Major awards to be presented at the Stockholm Congress include the EACPT Lifetime Achievement Award and the biennial EACPT Scientific Award for best publication on a clinical pharmacology or therapeutic theme.

Opportunities for EACPT Associate Members include
* discounted registration fees for EACPT meetings
* networking with colleagues worldwide through the global EACPT network of Associate Members
* active involvement in EACPT Working Parties and other activities


Find out how to become an Associate Member of the EACPT

Future EACPT Congresses will be held in:
– 2021 Athens
– 2023 Rotterdam


The EACPT was founded in 1993 and now includes as members all national organisations for clinical pharmacology in Europe, as well as organisations from further afield internationally. The EACPT aims to provide educational and scientific support for the more than 4000 individual professionals interested in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics throughout the European region, with its congresses attended by a global audience. The EACPT also advises policy makers on how the specialty can contribute to human health and wealth.

Monday 11 February 2019

1st March deadline for 2019 Hippocrates International Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine

The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is an international prize for a single unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. The length of the poem should be not more than 50 lines of text in addition to the title and any line breaks. 
Entrants should be aged 14 - 18 years old on the closing date for entries - 1st March.
Entries are free for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.
The award for the winner is £500 (~ USD 670). 
Entries for the 2019 Hippocrates Young Poet Poetry and Medicine Prize close at 12 midnight ie the end of the day on 1st March 2019 in the international time zone for entrants or -  if by mail - postmarked on1st March at latest. 

Enter online, by email or post for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize
 is supported by healthy heart vharity the Cardiovascular Research Trustwhich promotes education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation.


Since its launch in 2013, the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine has attrac
ted entries from Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia, with winners from the USA, the UK and Hong Kong. 


Heart charity patron Leslie Morgan OBE DL said: “The CVRT is delighted to have such international interest in the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize. The CVRT is also grateful that the 2019 Hippocrates Awards Ceremony will be held at the Centre for Life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK at the 10th annual international Hippocrates conference on poetry and medicine, which is being jointly organised by
the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine and the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.


New Zealand poet and novelist Elizabeth Smither will judge the Hippocrates international Young Poet Prize for Poetry and Medicine (age 14-18 years; deadline 1st March). Elizabeth Smither said: “Young poets have something that old poets don’t. Freshness, wonder, passion before the difficulty of being a poet is fully understood. No fear at looking at the blank page or blank screen. The whole world of words at their feet.” 

Shortlisted poets will be informed by email and information about the shortlist and the commended entries posted on the Hippocrates Prize website. The winners in the 2018 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize will be announced at the Hippocrates Awards ceremony on Friday 11th May 2018 at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago.


The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize  contact +44 7494 450805  or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com



2019 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize judge 
Elizabeth Smithers

2019 Elizabeth Smither photograph
Elizabeth Smithers is a poet who lives in New Zealand. Elizabeth Smither has published 18 collections of poetry. She was Te Mata Poet Laureate (2001-3), and was awarded an Hon DLitt by Auckland University and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2008. She also writes novels, journals and short stories, and is widely published in Australia, Britain and USA. She was awarded the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize in 2016 and her most recent poetry collection, Night Horse, won the Ockham NZ Book Award for poetry in 2018.

Hippocrates Prize Organisers
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. He is also editor of The Warwick Review. His latest book of poems, Half-Life (2013), was named a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.

When health and poetry come together: the 10th annual Hippocrates International Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Entries are now open for the 2019 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.
Since its launch in 2009, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted around 10,000 entries from over 70 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia. Entries for the 10th annual Hippocrates Prize close on 14th February (1st March for the Hippocrates Young Poet Prize).
Awards in the Hippocrates Prize are for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme by entrants from anywhere in the world. Previous winners have come from Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.
With a prize fund of £5500 for winning poems in the Open International category and NHS category, and £500 for the Young Poets Award, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.
Judges for the 2019 Hippocrates international Open Prize and Health Professional Prize (deadline 14th February) are UK journalist and broadcaster Kate Adie CBE, DL; American-Mexican poet and novelist Jennifer Clement, International President of PEN International; and physician Professor Dame Jane Dacre, who is immediate past-president of the UK Royal College of Physicians in London and a Professor of Medical Education. Jennifer Clement said: “When science and poetry come together this often creates great literature.”
New Zealand poet and novelist Elizabeth Smither will judge the Hippocrates international Young Poet Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Elizabeth Smither said: “Young poets have something that old poets don’t. Freshness, wonder, passion before the difficulty of being a poet is fully understood. No fear at looking at the blank page or blank screen. The whole world of words at their feet.” 
Co-organiser Donald Singer said: “We are delighted to have such a distinguished panel of judges for the 2019 Hippocrates Prize. We are also grateful that the 2019 Hippocrates Awards Ceremony will be hosted by the Centre for Life in Newcastle in partnership with the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.”
Centre Director Professor Sinéad Morrissey added: “The Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts is delighted to co-host this important international poetry prize – one which is growing in status and reputation each year, making vital contributions to both fields of knowledge.”
Co-organiser Michael Hulse said: “Our tenth anniversary year promises to be one of real distinction, and we look forward eagerly to reading the poems that take this year’s prizes and commendations.”
Awards in the Hippocrates Prize are for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme by entrants from anywhere in the world. Previous winners have come from Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.
The International Hippocrates Prize is awarded in three categories:
- a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the Hippocrates Open category, which anyone in the world may enter. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Open category
- a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the Health Professional category, which is open to Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations anywhere in the world involved in education and training of health professional students and staff. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Health Professional category
- a £500 award for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entries are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. There are further commendations in the Young Poets category. There is no entry fee for the Young Poets prize.
US poet and 2018 Hippocrates Prize Judge Mark Doty said: “The humane and moving work shortlisted for the Hippocrates Poetry Prizes testify to the power of poetry to help us to negotiate the difficult in carefully crafted, artful language”.
Australian doctor, poet and 2018 Hippocrates Prize Judge Peter Goldsworthy added: “There are many species of poem (in the 2018 Hippocrates Prize entries) - dark, poignant, epigrammatic, celebratory, funny. I applaud the poets for their creativity and compassion.”
Shortlisted and commended poets will be informed by email and information about the shortlist and the commended entries posted on the Hippocrates Prize website. The winners in the 2019 Hippocrates Health Professional Prize will be announced by the judges at the Hippocrates Awards ceremony on Friday 17th May 2019 in at the Centre for Life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.
Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize contact +44 7494 450805  or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com 
2019 Hippocrates Judges
The 2019 Hippocrates Awards judging panel includes BBC journalist Kate Adie from the UK, US-Mexican poet and novelist Jennifer Clement, and past-president of the UK Royal College of Physicians Professor Dame Jane Dacre, for the International Open and International Health Professional categories; and, for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize, poet and novelist Elizabeth Smither from New Zealand.
Kate Adie became a familiar figure through her work as BBC Chief News Correspondent. She is the long-serving presenter of Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and a presenter or contributor to many other radio and television programmes. She has served as a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction, now the Bailey’s, and the Whitbread, now the Costa Prize, and recently, the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Kate was honoured with a Bafta Fellowship in 2018 and received a CBE in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours list. Other awards include: Royal Television Society Reporter of the Year 1980, for her coverage of the SAS end to the Iranian Embassy siege; Winner, 1981 & 1990, Monte Carlo International Golden Nymph Award; The Richard Dimbleby BAFTA Award 1990.
Jennifer Clement is the President of PEN International and the first woman to be elected as its President in 100 years. Under her leadership the PEN International Women’s Manifesto was created. Clement has published four books of poetry including The Next Stranger (with an introduction by W.S. Merwin). She is the author of A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen and Gun Love.  She also wrote the acclaimed memoir Widow Basquiat on New York City in the 1980’s and the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Her books have been translated into 30 languages. She is the recipient of the Canongate Prize, Sara Curry Humanitarian Award, the Gran Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Fellowship, and her books have twice been a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book.  Prayers for the Stolen was both a PEN/Faulkner Prize and Femina Prize finalist. Her recent novel Gun Love is an Oprah Book Club Selection as well as being a National Book Award finalist. She lives in Mexico City. 
Elizabeth Smither has published 18 collections of poetry. She was New Zealand’s Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, and was awarded an Hon DLitt by Auckland University and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2008. She also writes novels, journals and short stories, and is widely published in Australia, Britain and USA. She was awarded the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize in 2016 and her most recent poetry collection, Night Horse, won the Ockham NZ Book Award for poetry in 2018.
Professor Dame Jane Dacre DBE, MD, FRCP is a UK consultant rheumatologist and Professor of Medical Education. She is the immediate past president of the London Royal College of Physicians and was vice chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities, Director of University College of London Medical School, MD of MRCPUK and academic VP of the RCP. She is the lead for the DHSC independent review into the gender pay gap in medicine, and the President of the Medical Protection Society. She won the medicine and healthcare category 2012 of Women in the City Woman of Achievement Award; was named on the HSJ inaugural list of 50 inspirational women in healthcare in 2013; was named in the science and medicine category for people of influence Debrett’s 500 in 2015, 2016 and 2017; and was named on the HSJ top 100 list from 2014 to 2017.
Organisers of the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. His latest book of poems, Half-Life (2013), was named a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.