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Awards in the Hippocrates Prize are for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme by entrants from anywhere in the world.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

Save the date: Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine to be awarded at Harvard on 6th May 2017

In a joint launch in the UK and in the USA, the judges for the 2017 International Open and Health Professional Awards have been announced as Neal Baer, Harvard-trained American paediatrician and ER producer, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Jorie Graham; Scottish Makar (national poet) Jackie Kay; and Professor Owen Lewis, New York, USA.  The 2017 Hippocrates Young Poets Judge will be judged by poet Maya Catherine Popa, New York City, USA (see details about the judges).

There have already been entries from 14 countries for the 2017 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine - deadline 12mn local time on 14th February.

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, has an awards fund of £5,500 (~USD 7,500). To find out more about the Hippocrates Prize and to enter online, see hippocratespoetry.wordpress.com

In the UK, clinical pharmacologist and prize co-founder Donald Singer said: “We are delighted to have such a distinguished panel of poets and health professionals as judges for the 2017 Hippocrates Prize.”

Harvard physician and poet Rafael Campo added: “ The Arts and Humanities Initiative of Harvard Medical School is very pleased to be supporting this major international prize, and to be hosting the awards ceremony, which will for the first time be presented in the USA.”

The 2017 Hippocrates Awards are being organised in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Initiative of Harvard Medical School. The Awards will announced by the judges at a ceremony at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, on Saturday 6th May 2017.

There will also be a pre-Symposium Poetry and Medicine Workshop at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston: Friday 5th May – 6.30pm.

Download flyer for Symposium, awards, and pre-Symposium Poetry Workshop at Boston Museum of Fine Art.

Now in its 8th year, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted over 8000 entries from around the world, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia. All awards are for a single unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines of verse on a medical theme.

The International Open category is open to anyone in the world to enter. There have been entries from over 60 countries since the Hippocrates Prize was launched in 2009, with winning poets from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the UK and the USA.

The International Health Professional category is open to any in the world who is a Health Professional  employees, a health student or working in a professional organisation or charity involved in education and training of health professional students and staff or in supporting the care of patients.

The international Young Poet category: anyone in the world may enter who is aged under 19 years and at least 14 years old on the date of the Awards (6th May 2017). This £500 (~690 USD) award was launched in 2012. The 2017 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is supported by the healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize and the 2017 judges, contact +44 7494 450 805 or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

The 2017 Hippocrates Prize is supported by:
- UK philanthropist Anthony Fretwell-Downing.
- The Arts and Humanities Initiative of Harvard Medical School.
- 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.

More on the Judges for the 2017 Hippocrates Prize

Judges announced for 2015 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Poet Rebecca Goss joins author, journalist and broadcaster John Humphreys, and psychiatrist Professor Femi Oyebode in the judging panel for the 2015 Hippocrates Prize.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single unpublished poem. The  Hippocrates has a £5000 first prize both for its Open International and for its NHS Awards, and a £500 prize for the best poem in the Young Poets category. All awards are for a single unpublished poem on a medical theme. Entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Prize close at 12 midnight GMT 31st January, 2015.

Rebecca Goss was selected in 2014 by The Poetry Book Society's as a Next Generation Poet. Her first collection The Anatomy of Structures was published by Flambard Press in 2010. Her second collection, Her Birth (Carcanet/Northern House), was shortlisted for The 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection and winner of the Poetry Category in The 2013 East Anglian Book Awards.

She joins a list of distinguished previous poet-judges for the Hippocrates Prize: Dannie Abse, Philip Gross, Gwyneth Lewis, Marilyn Hacker and Jo Shapcott.

John Humphrys is a distinguished journalist and presenter of radio and television who has won many national broadcasting awards. He has been a presenter on the award-winning Today programme on BBC Radio 4, since 1987. Since 2003 he has also been the host of the BBC2 television quiz Mastermind. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter for Nine O’Clock News on BBC Television. Previous Hippocrates judges representing the public on the panel were broadcasters James Naughtie, Mark Lawson and Martha Kearney, Science Museums' Director of Communications Roger Highfield and Sarah Crown, Editor of Mumsnet.

Femi Oyebode is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham and Consultant Psychiatrist at the National Centre for Mental Health in Birmingham. His research interests include clinical psychopathology and medical humanities. He is also a published poet. Hippocrates judges previously representing health professionals were Sir Bruce Keogh, Professor Steve Field, Professor Rod Flower FRS, Dr Theodore Dalrymple and Sir Robert Francis QC. 
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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.
 

The International Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single unpublished poem on a medical theme. It is awarded in three categories:

- an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter;
- an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff;
- a Young Poets category in the international Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets  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.

At the 2014 Awards Ceremony at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, the £5000 Hippocrates Open International first prize was awarded to UK-based poet Jane Draycott for her poem The Return. The NHS first prize was awarded to trainee paediatrician Dr Ellen Storm for her poem Out of Hospital Arrest, and the £500 Young Poet prize was awarded to Connor McKee, an English literature student at Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge.

The judges of the 2014 Open and NHS prize categories were poet Philip Gross, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, Philip Mumsnet editor Sarah Crown, and barrister Sir Robert Francis QC.

To find out more about the 2015 prize, or to enter, click here.

Notes to editors


For more on the Hippocrates Prize and the 2015 judges, contact 0759 0478078 or email  hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com



Hippocrates Prize Organisers Professor Donald Singer is President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. He co-authors Pocket Prescriber, the 7th edition of which is published by Taylor & Francis in May 2014. 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.




The 2015 Hippocrates Prize is supported by:

The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, a national medical society founded in 1918 and publisher of the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology, has supported the Hippocrates Prize since its launch in 2009.


The 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. 

Four schools receive 2013 Healthy Heart Awards from Mediterranean Diet researcher Ramon Estruch

The 2013 Healthy Heart Awards have been awarded to Chevening CE Primary School in Kent, Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School in Lambeth, Dulwich Hamlet Junior School in Southwark, and St Nicholas CE Primary School in Chislehurst.

The Awards were presented in London on Thursday 5th December 2013 by Mediterranean diet researcher Professor Ramón Estruch from Barcelona.

The aim of the 'Healthy Heart Awards' is to engage young and older school and college students in the health of their hearts. Entries included a short video, artwork, games, and poems about how to keep the heart healthy.

The Healthy Heart Awards were founded in 2010 by healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust (CVRT).

Awards co-founder and CVRT trustee Professor Donald Singer said: “The Awards provide an innovative way for young people to make an active contribution to the future health of their own hearts and those of children of all ages from around the world.”

Fellow Awards co-founder and CVRT trustee John Jackson added: “The Healthy Heart Awards also provide new opportunities within the curriculum for teaching and learning about science and health”.

Awards co-organizer Wendy French said: “We are delighted that participating pupils enjoyed taking part, while learning more about keeping the heart healthy”. She added: “Comments from the pupils included:

'It brought us together as a class.'

'It gave me something exciting to think about. I like inventing.'

'It made us solve puzzles about how things could work and sometimes they didn't!'

'I didn't know learning could be such fun.'“

The Awards ceremony, which included readings by Dr Raphael Shirley of winning entries, took place at an international CVRT symposium on ‘Diet, Active Lifestyle and Cardiovascular Health’ on Thursday 5th December 2013.

Symposium speakers included Professor Dame Carol Black, Cambridge, on working for a healthier tomorrow, Professor Ramon Estruch, Barcelona, on protecting cardiovascular health by following a Mediterranean diet, Dr Ingmar Wester, Finland, on plant bioactives to reduce cardiovascular risk, and Professor Chris Imray, Coventry, on exercise to improve outcomes of surgery.

Notes for editors and schools

For more on the Healthy Heart Awards including pictures from the day, contact the Cardiovascular Research Trust on cvrtrust@gmail.com

Information for entries to 2014 Healthy Heart Awards.

The Cardiovascular Research Trust (CVRT) is a registered charity, which supports research and education aimed at prevention and treatment of premature disease of the heart and circulation: http://cvrt.org.uk/

Awards Symposium topics and speakers

Working for a Healthier Tomorrow: Professor Dame Carol Black, DBE, FRCP, Principal of Newnham College Cambridge, Adviser on Work and Health at the Department of Health, England, Chair of the Nuffield Trust and Chair of the Governance Board, Centre for Workforce Intelligence. Spearheaded by Carol Black as National Director, ‘Health, Work and Wellbeing’ is a joint initiative across government to improve the health and well-being of working age people.

Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular health: Professor Ramón Estruch, Medical Professor at the University of Barcelona. He leads Thematic Networks evaluating the effects of the Mediterranean Diet and its main components on primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in high-risk patients. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the EU European Foundation for Alcohol Research.

Healthy Heart Awards co-organizer: Wendy French was head of the Maudsley and Bethlem Hospital School for fifteen years and now works with people with aphasia/dysphasia, helping them to recover their use of language through poetry. With fellow poet Jane Kirwan, in 2013 she published Born in the NHS, a passionate defence of the NHS and a social history – families in sickness and health, the changing roles of health professionals – over the last seventy years.  Her prizes in international competitions include first prize in the NHS category of the Hippocrates Prize in 2010 and second prize in 2011.

Exercise and improving outcome of surgery: Chris Imray, Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University Hospital in Coventry. He is interested in the effects of extreme altitude on the cardiovascular system, in prevention and treatment of carotid artery stroke syndromes, and in strategies for improving outcomes of vascular surgery.

Reader of entries for the Healthy Heart Awards: Dr Raphael Shirley performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2012 and 2013. For more see Raph’s website: http://www.raphshirley.com

Diet and exercise to reverse overweight: what works? Donald Singer, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of Warwick. Professor Singer is interested in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, and in public understanding of the benefits and risks of medicines.

The Lifestyle Heart Trial: 23 years on. Dr Ellen Storm, is a medical doctor training in paediatrics and child health. She has a Masters Degree in public health and has a particular scientific interest in the causal relationships between diet and disease.

Plant stanols, blood lipids and cardiovascular health: Dr Ingmar Wester, R & D Director at Finnish company Raisio. He discovered plant stanol esters in 1995 and has researched their cardiovascular benefits.

Entries from 29 countries for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize

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Entries are now closed for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize Open and NHS categories.
There were over 1000 entries from 29 countries: from throughout the United Kingdon and USA (39 states), and from Canada to China, Switzerland to South Africa, Netherlands to Australia and New Zealand.
In order of number of entries received, poems were from: United Kingdom, USA, New Zealand, Ireland, India, Canada, Australia, France, Switzerland, Nigeria, Germany, South Africa, Greece, Belgium, China, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Montenegro, Zimbabwe, Poland, Macedonia and Spain.

Entries remain open for the 2013 Hippocrates category for Young Poets aged 14-18 years: deadline 12 midnight GMT 1st March.  

This new category in the Hippocrates Prize is for Young Poets from anywhere in the world and is for an unpublished poem of up to 50 lines in English on a medical theme. The entry fee is £2 per individual poem or £15 per group of 10 poems entered e.g. from a poetry society or school.
The Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets will be judged by poet Clare Pollard, who published her first collection of poetry at the age of 19. The Young Poets Prize offers an award of £500 for the best poem. There will also be ten commendations.
Short-listed poets in all categories of the Hippocrates Prize will be informed by mid-April.
Awards will be announced by the judges on 18th May, 2013 at the Wellcome Collection in London at the end of the 4th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine.

Favourite poems with a medical theme - 2013

To mark the 2013 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, the organisers invite nominations of your favourite poem with a medical theme.

'Medical' is to be interpreted in the broadest sense. Nominations may be from anyone anywhere in the world and for poems written by a poet from anywhere in the world and in any language. The poem may to be contemporary or from any historical period.

You can see examples at 'favourite poems on a medical theme' of comments received and find links to many of the nominated favourite poems in 2012.

And some recent nominations:

John Betjeman - 'Before Anaesthetic ...'

Nazim Hikmet - 'Angina Pectoris' 

...

The Hippocrates Prize of £5000 for the winning poem in both the Open International and the UK NHS category is one of the highest value awards in the world for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme.

There is also a new Hippocrate Prize of £500 for Young Poets aged 14 - 18 years, from anywhere in the world.

Awards for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize will be presented by the judges on Saturday 18th May 2012 at the  4th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, to be held at the Wellcome Collection in London.

Closing dates for 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine
Open International category - 31st January, 2013
NHS UK category - 31st January, 2013
Young Poets category - 1st March, 2013

31st Jan deadline for 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

@HealthMed

The deadline for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize is 31st Jan 2013, with awards to be announced at the Wellcome Collection in London on 18th May, 2013.

With a 1st prize for the winning poem in each category of £5,000, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem. In its first 3 years, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted around 4000 entries from 44 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia. Awards are in an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter, and an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff. Co-organizers are medical professor Donald Singer and poet and translator Michael Hulse. 

 The Hippocrates poetry and medicine initiative received  the Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts in the 2011 Times Higher Education awards. This award aims to recognise the collaborative and interdisciplinary work that is taking place in universities to promote the arts. Entries were open to teams and all higher education institutions in the UK. Major support for the Hippocrates initiative has come from the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, with additional support from the Wellcome Trust, the Cardiovascular Research Trust, Heads, Teachers and Industry and the University Warwick's Institute of Advanced Study.  

The judging panel for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize is now complete: Jo Shapcott, winner of the 2011 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, Theodore Dalrymple, doctor and writer, and Roger Highfield, science writer and Executive for the Science Museums Group.

Jo Shapcott was born in London. Poems from her three award-winning collections, Electroplating the Baby (1988), Phrase Book (1992) and My Life  Asleep (1998) are gathered in a selected poems, Her Book (2000). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Collection, the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the National Poetry Competition (twice). Tender Taxes, her versions of Rilke, was published in 2001. Her most recent collection, Of Mutability, was published in 2010 and won the 2011 Costa Book Award. She was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in December 2011. Jo Shapcott teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name for Dr Anthony Daniels, who has worked as a doctor in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Gilbert Islands, London and Birmingham, most recently as a psychiatrist and prison doctor. His writing has appeared regularly in the press and in medical publications, including the British Medical Journal, the Times, Telegraph, Observer and the Spectator. His most recent book is The Pleasure of Thinking.

Roger Highfield is the Director of External Affairs at the Science Museum Group. He was born in Wales, raised in north London and became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble. He was the Science Editor of The Daily Telegraph for two decades and the Editor of New Scientist between 2008 and 2011. His most recent book, with Martin Nowak is Supercooperators: Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour.


Enter online for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine.


More on the International Hippocrates Prize and the NHS Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine.

New Hippocrates Prize for schools launched

@HealthMed

The Hippocrates Initiative has launched the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets for an unpublished poem of up to 50 lines (excluding the title) in English on a medical theme.

Entrants may be young poets from anywhere in the world who must be aged 14 to 18 years on the closing date for entries - midnight GMT 1st March, 2013.

The first prize is GBP 500 for the winning young poets, with a further 10 awards of commendation for the most highly rated entries.

The Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets will be judged by English poet and playwright Clare Pollard.

Clare Pollard said: “Having my poetry published when I was sixteen altered my life.  It made me believe I could actually be a writer, and vow to work as hard as I could to make it happen. 

 “The great thing about poetry is that age doesn't matter. It's hard as a teenager to find the time and stamina to write a perfect novel, but you can write three perfect verses.  If you put down the things you really want to say about our world, in your own voice, you will have written a powerful poem.”

Born in 1978 and raised in Bolton, she read English at Cambridge University. She published her first collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, with Bloodaxe in 1998 aged 19.

Awards will be announced on Saturday 18th May, 2013 at the end of the 4th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, at the Wellcome Collection Rooms, Euston Road, London.

The inaugural Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is supported by the UK medical charity the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine and the UK National Association of Writers in Education.

Further information on the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets will be announced shortly.

Enter online for the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets

Website for the Hippocrates Prize