SC Connecticut News

The Yale School of Medicine (YSM) Program for Humanities in Medicine (PHM) recently celebrated the winners of its annual Health Professions Students' Creative Writing & Art Contest. The contest, which started over two decades ago, originally catered only to medical students and was established by the family of Marguerite Rush Lerner, MD, a dermatologist at YSM and children’s book author.

Professor and PHM Director Anna Reisman, MD, explained that the contest expanded several years ago to include visual arts and students from across health profession schools and programs—MD, MD-PhD, Physician Associate, Physician Assistant Online, Nursing, and Public Health. This year saw almost 100 students participating in the contest.

Among the winning entries were "Care Taker," "These Small Things," "Hunger," and "Black Motherhood in Medicine." These pieces of poetry, prose, and visual artworks received first-place honors.

Lenique Huggins, a second-year MD student who created "Black Motherhood in Medicine," drew inspiration from her experiences as a young Black woman studying medicine. She expressed concern about maternal mortality rates among Black mothers and the challenges she may face as a future Black mother in medicine.

Hang Nguyen, an MD student from the class of 2025 who painted "Submerged," used art as a medium to communicate when she immigrated to America from Vietnam at age 11 without knowing English. Her work represents her longing for tranquil spaces where one can be true to oneself.

First-year Physician Associate (PA) student Kelly Dunn won three prizes for her prose piece "Hunger," her poem "On Chinese Medicine," and her prose work "On the First Day of Anatomy Lab." Dunn only began writing during the COVID-19 pandemic but found it helpful in processing her experiences in PA school.

Reisman thanked PHM Manager Karen Kolb for coordinating the contest and acknowledged the 16 YSM faculty and staff members who served as judges.