Awards
Fellowship in Medical Humanities
Each year, the Division offers a competitive award of one Fellowship in Medical Humanities (FIMH). This one-year fellowship provides medical students the chance to study an area of the Medical Humanities that may interest them considerably, but that cannot be explored adequately within the constraints of the regular curriculum. The program encourages medical students to research aspects of healthcare within George Engel's medical framework—to consider their places and those of their patients in relationship to self, family, community, nation, and biosphere. To do this, students will use materials and methodologies of humanities disciplines, including literature, fine arts, philosophy, ethics, religious studies, visual and cultural studies, law and history.
The fellowship is intended to provide an intellectual opportunity and funding for substantive and innovative humanities-focused projects on medical topics or issues. FIMH hopes to nurture a balance of humanistic and scientific perspectives. The fellowship does not support completion of degree programs at other institutions. The fellowship cannot be deferred from the year in which it is granted.
Fellowship application due date is February 10, 2012.
FIMH Application Materials and instructions
Medical Humanities Summer Research Student Grants
Co-sponsored by the Student Enrichment Program, the Division offers several summer grants to eligible students with summer research proposals whose topic, objectives and methodology are more appropriate to humanities or social sciences than clinical basic sciences. Contact Adrienne Morgan, adrienne_morgan@urmc.rochester.edu for further information and deadlines.
Rochester Academy of Medicine Awards for Essays on a Medical or Historical Subject
Every year the Rochester Academy of Medicine (RAOM) offers a number of awards from $300 - $750 to medical students, physicians, and other health care professionals for essays on a topic in medicine or medical history. These awards are available in the fields of geriatrics, nursing, adult primary care, trauma and emergency medicine, surgery, occupational medicine, medical history any medical subject. Further information is available on the RAOM website or from Andrea Ehmann, email: andrea_ehmann@urmc.rochester.edu.
Faculty-Staff-Student Creative Excellence Award Contest
Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Cluster for Human Values in Health Care and the Center for Ethics, Humanities and Palliative Care.
2011 CREATIVE EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS 
We would like to thank everyone who submitted entries and are pleased to announce this year’s winners. Each first-place winner receives a cash prize of $200 and an award plaque. This year the judges awarded ties for First Place in both the Student and Staff categories.
Student Awards:3-way tie:
CHRISTOPHER CHANG, 4TH year medical student Winning submission: Altered Mental Status (fiction)
Chris grew up in Wisconsin and attended undergrad in Cleveland. He graduated from SMD on May 13 and has begun Family Medicine residency at the University of Massachusetts. “My entry is based onan experience with a patient during my internal medicine sub-internship. The entire episode weighed on me, but medical professionalism requires adegree of compartmentalization.When I returned home I needed to write about the experience to fully process my thoughts and emotions. I've always found catharsis in writing, either prose or poetry, and plan to continue doing so in the future.”
JASON REMINICK, 2ND year medical student Winning submission: Men in White (director of play)
Jason will soon begin his third year as a medical student in the combined MD/MBA program at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Simon Graduate School of Business Administration. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 in the accelerated BA/MS program, earning his MS in Chemistry and BA in Biochemistry and Theatre Arts with honors. Currently, he serves as the student leader for the Medical Reader's Theatre Project in the Division of Medical Humanities. “I am thrilled to receive this award and to have been provided the opportunity to present the classic 1930's medical drama, Men in White. I want to thank the cast and crew for a wonderful experience and production.”
DAVID VALENTINE, 2ND year medical student Winning submission: Popping (fiction)
David grew up in Mars, PA and attended Allegheny College for undergraduate studies. “I wrote this story during the first year class Molecules to Cells, after learning about a number of genetic disorders that cause regression of development and eventual death in young children. These diseases were quite disturbing to me, and this story is what came out of that disturbance. I wanted the story to address a number of topics that interest me, such as the irony of the fact that apoptosis--programmed cell death--is required for life to continue normally, and how chance governs much of our lives however we might desire to control them, either through medical interventions or other means. On a more technical note, I wanted the piece to be primarily moved forward by dialogue and internal action.”
Staff Awards: 2-way tie:
MELISSA deSa, Psychiatry Resident Winning Submission: Highest Order (Dr. deSa has asked that her work not be published on on this site.)
Melissa is finishingher psychiatry residency this June and will stay onas a part-time faculty member in the Psych emergency room. She completed herB.S. at Cornell University and her M.D. at SUNY Stony Brook. Her favorite writersinclude Ernest Hemingway, Jhumpa Lahiri, Steven Millhauser and Michael Chabon. “When thinking about important themes in medicine to write about, two came to mind. First, the dehumanizationof patients, and second, physician impairment. I tried tobring both these tolife in my fictional piece, Highest Order about an emergency medicine resident struggling with alcoholism.” Melissa received honorable mention in last year’s contest.
DENISE THOMPSON-SLAUGHTER, Editor, History Dept. Winning submission: Pain is Just a Four Letter Word (poem)
Denise is Managing Editor of the quarterly, Reviews in American History, and has been at the University of Rochester for almost four years. Her paid career has been in editing, but like most editors, she dreams of being paid for writing. Her first book of poetry was published last year: Elemental: Poems of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit. Her poem "Pain is Just a Four-Letter Word" is not in that collection, but was inspired by the first of two knee replacements in the past six years, and hopefully will appear in a future collection.
Faculty Award:
PETER SULLIVAN, SW, Psychiatry Winning submission: The Problem Free Afternoon (fiction)
Peter is a Senior Social Worker in the Adult Ambulatory Clinic of the Department of Psychiatry. He has worked at the University of Rochester as an outpatient psychotherapist since 1992. In addition to working in the clinic, he has been a member of the Faculty Practice for a number of years. As he has wandered through the hospital’s hallways over the years, he has often wondered about the number of stories that occur daily, sometimes glimpsed in the briefest of views, passing by a waiting area.
“The Problem Free Afternoon” is a story about the experience of strangers meeting one another, sharing initially the fact of spending time together in a large hospital waiting room. Within this chance encounter, conversations begin that lead to revelations about one another and about one’s self. The story describes the surprise of human connection, the uncertainty and transience of feeling captive within a large health care system. Peter was a recipient of the Human Values in Health Care Award Best Creative Work in 2008.
