Winning medical prizes, bursaries or awards can bring great benefits to doctors starting out on their careers. As well achieving recognition for the quality of their work, candidates often have the opportunity to present to a high-profile panel of judges – a possibly daunting, but always rewarding, experience.
The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), one of the UK’s leading providers of postgraduate medical education, runs a programme of over 80 prizes and awards for trainees and medical students.
When Dr Zahra Ahmed won last year’s hotly contested Wesleyan RSM Trainee of the Year Award for her research identifying that the existing drug Flubendazole could be re-purposed for use in disease treatment or prevention in conditions including HIV, she commented: “The presence of so many esteemed individuals at such awards does much to encourage, guide and advance the thinking of younger generations of doctors starting out on their careers.”
Upcoming RSM prizes
There are several RSM prize deadlines coming up over the next few weeks. Dr Ahmed’s advice for trainees and medical students thinking about putting themselves forward is to just try. “After all, if you don’t ask, you don’t get and what’s the worst that can happen?” she says. “I think having an attitude of never giving up is also an important trait for developing resilience – an essential quality for doctors to develop as we progress through our careers.”
Here is a selection of the many RSM prizes coming up soon. Full details can be found on the RSM website: www.rsm.ac.uk/prizes-awards
RSM Critical Care Medicine Section
Audit and Quality Improvement Project Prize
Open to all UK & Eire trainees in intensive care medicine
Deadline: Monday 7 August
RSM Otology Section
Temporal Bone Competition
Open to pre-CCT trainees at all stages
Deadline: Wednesday 9 August
RSM Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Section
Short Paper Prize
Open to all trainees in relevant specialties
Deadline: Thursday 7 September
RSM Ellison-Cliffe Travelling Fellowship
Travelling overseas for study, research or clinical training can prove a life-changing experience, both professionally and personally and one of the most prestigious awards in the RSM prize programme is the Ellison-Cliffe Travelling Fellowship.
Inaugurated 12 years ago by Dr Carice Ellison-Cliffe, one of the Society’s most generous benefactors, the Fellowship is valued at £15,000 and is intended to cover expenses for travel abroad in pursuit of further study, research or clinical training. Normally two Fellowships are awarded each year.
Applicants must be members of the RSM and should be specialist registrar or lecturer grade or equivalent, or who are consultants within three years of their first consultant appointment.
For the 2018 award, candidates will normally be expected to take up the Fellowship between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019.
At the end of their Fellowship, the successful candidates will be expected to provide a written report about the work undertaken during the tenure of the Fellowship and to present at an appropriate RSM educational meeting.
Closing date for entries is Monday 2 October and interviews will be held for shortlisted candidates on 5 December 2017.
For more information and application details for the Ellison-Cliffe Travelling Fellowship and all other RSM prizes, visit www.rsm.ac.uk/prizes-awards
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