The WPA Working Group on Medical Students publish an eBook compiling some of the selected essays they received as part of their fellowship award to attend this year's WPA World Congress in Vienna
Capacity building and promoting psychiatry among medical students is one of the major components of World Psychiatric Association's (WPA) Triennium Action Plan 2020- 2023. In this regard, WPA offered medical students the opportunity to win a fellowship (Travel Award) to attend the 23rd WPA World Congress of Psychiatry (WCP23) in Vienna, Austria this month (28th Sept - 1st October).
The WPA Working Group (WG) on Medical Students invited participants to submit an essay of up to 750 words on the topic of “The Interface of Physical and Mental Health”; with one winner being awarded travel fellowship to attend the WCP23 in Vienna.
The response was overwhelming with 640 entries from 41 different countries, 234 medical schools and 6 continents.
The quality of entrees was impressive and the judging panel assessed the essays on the basis of originality, clarity of argument, academic rigour, abiding to the rules and quality of writing. The two-stage review process was vigorous with 23 judges participating in the first phase and 5 judges assessing the 10 finalists in the final stage. At this stage, the participants remained anonymous from the Judges in order to maintain impartiality.
After a close competition, the winner of this travel fellowship was awarded to:
Jessica Batra (Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India)
In addition to the winner, 9 finalists were given Commendation letters on behalf of WPA. These were:
Shreerupa Bandyopadhyay (All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India)
Zuzanna Burzyńska (Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland)
Nadine Kunz (KARL Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Krems an der Donau, Austria)
Mehnaz Kumar (Government Medical College, Amritsar, India)
Ernest Kofi Okyere (University of Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana)
Ann Carlotta Oltmanns (Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
Tara Rasuli (Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
Farwa Sadiq (King Edward Medical University, Lahore, Pakistan)
Jayson Wilson (University of Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana)
The judging panel was extremely impressed by the high quality of submissions and the global interest this essay competition generated was very encouraging. This is the second consecutive year that WPA has conducted this kind of essay competition among medical students. We are extremely thankful to all the judges and members of the WPA Working Group on Medical Students for their contributions in making this essay competition successful.
Following the success of the competition, the WPA Working Group on Medical Students have released an eBook containing a compilation of the final 10 competition essays, including the winning submission. You can read the eBook here.
Author: Professor Afzal Javed, WPA President & Professor Muhammad Waqar Azeem (Chair of the WPA Working Group on Medical Students)