Judging underway for the 12th Annual International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine - entries from 34 countries

Entries are now closed for the Open and Health Professional awards and for the Young Poets Prize in the 2021 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Poems have been submitted from 34 countries from Australia to the USA and from Iceland to India. 

The Open and Health Professional awards in the Hippocrates Prize are supported by medical society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The Young Poets Award for poets aged 14-18 years is supported by healthy heart charity The Cardiovascular Research Trust.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.

There is a prize fund of £500 for winning poems in the FPM-Hippocrates Open category and the FPM-Hippocrates health professional category.

Entries remain open for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Anne Barnard, Keki Daruwalla, Anna Jackson, Neena Modi

 

 

 

Senior New York Times correspondent Anne Barnard, distinguished poets Keki Daruwalla and Anna Jackson and paediatrician Professor Neena Modi, President-Elect of the British Medical Association, are the judges for the 2021 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Ann Barnard, Keki Daruwalla and Professor Neena Modi will judge the Open and Health Professional awards and Anna Jackson judge the Young Poets’ Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Co-organiser Donald Singer said: “We are delighted to have such strong international interest already and such a distinguished panel of judges for the 2021 Hippocrates Prize.”

Read more about the judges ... 

2021 International FPM-Hippocrates Open and Health Professional categories
In each category: 1st Prize £1000, 2nd Prize £500, 3rd Prize £250 and up to 20 commendations. Entries were received from 28 countries for these awards in the 2020 Hippocrates Prize.

There are a limited number of free entries for low-income writers for these awards.
Click here for how to apply for a free entry.

2021 Hippocrates Young Poets’ Prize for Poetry and Medicine
Entries for this prize are free.The Young Poets’ Prize is for poets aged 14-18 years from anywhere in the world.  The Young Poets’ Prize is £500. Entries were received from 19 countries for these 2020 Hippocrates Prize awards.

Awards in the Hippocrates Prize are for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme by entrants from anywhere in the world.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 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

- closing date 1st March for the £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 email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com 

Support for the 2021 Hippocrates Prize

The 2021 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. 

The 2021 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is supported by healthy heart charity The Cardiovascular Research Trust 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.

Health of world leaders: Winston Churchill’s illnesses

Churchill's illnesses ranged from concussion and fractures, to pneumonia, atrial fibrillation and strokes, many occurring at times when his decisions would play a key role in national and world events. 

Clinical Pharmacologist and Toxicologist Allister Vale and Neurologist John Scadding have written the definitive account of Churchill’s major illnesses, from an episode of childhood pneumonia in 1886 until his death in 1965.

The authors will discuss their new book on Winston Churchill’s illnesses (Frontline Books: 15 Oct. 2020) at a free online webinar hosted by Medical Society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine on 25 January 2021 at 4pm UK time

 

Click here to register for the webinar 

Chair: Professor Donald Singer, President, Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, London, UK

Panel: Authors Professor Allister Vale, Clinical Pharmacologist and Toxicologist, University of Birmingham, UK and Dr John Scadding, Hon. Consultant Neurologist Emeritus, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London; Dr Anthony Daniels, writer and former psychiatrist, Bridgnorth; Dr Adrian Crisp, Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge and Chair of the Churchill Archives Committee at Churchill College; Dr John Launer, General Practitioner and Editorial Board member, Postgraduate Medical Journal.

Amongst questions for discussion are those relating to the impact of his acute and recurrent illnesses – and his tobacco smoking, alcohol and other habits – on his ‘mental capacity’, ability to focus and thus on key decisions during his political life, not least those influencing outcomes in the key theatres of the Second World War, planning for the peace at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and his final years as Prime Minister. It is tempting for example to speculate that the very treatment aimed at protecting him from illness in Yalta may have instead impaired Churchill's decision-making during that critical conference with fellow leaders and political rivals.

Interesting as a pharmacologist to see notes of adverse drug reactions [from mepacrine to sulfonamides] as a likely cause of some of Churchill's illnesses; and comments on public awareness, and Churchill’s and his wife’s perception of treatments (e.g. with mepacrine or “M & B”) as causes of not feeling very well. The documented idea of “treatment worse than the cure’” must go back at least to inspirations for the Hammurabi Code.

Discussion of Churchill's North African visit touches on a facet of the “VIP syndrome”, from his remarkable efforts to find reasons to avoid medical advice to his eventually conceding to his physician Moran.

Click here for more about the book, the authors and the panel