Tag Archives: Osler essay contest

Medical Students Essay Awards 2017

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Congratulations to this year’s Pam and Rolando Del Maestro William Osler Medical Students’ Essay Award winners! The essays are now available on our website.

Osler Library Board of Curators’ medal

This year saw a tie for first place: Clare Forgarty for the essay “Sanitation, Sanity, and (Moral) Suitability: The History of the Medical Inadmissibility of Immigrants into Canada (1840s-1950s)” and André Lametti for the essay “Ars uero longa: Teaching Hippocrates in Medieval Italy”. They were presented with their Osler Library Board of Curators’ medals during the Osler Banquet hosted by the McGill Osler Society on November 1st. Second place was awarded to Philippe-Antoine Bilodeau for the essay “A Tale of Two Brains: Cortical Localization and the Neuron Doctrine in the 19th and 20th Century”. Philippe-Antoine presented his paper via Skype while doing his rural family medicine rotation in South Africa.

Thank you so much to all the students, mentors, judges, and sponsors who supported the contest. We look forward to next year’s presentations.

Osler Day 2017

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Please join the library on this year’s Osler Day, Wednesday, November 1st, for a presentation of essays by the three finalists chosen as part of the Pam and Rolando Del Maestro William Osler Medical Students Essay Awards. The presentations will be held at 11:30 a.m in the Wellcome Camera of the Osler Library, McIntyre Medical Building, 3rd Floor. The winner will be announced at the Osler Banquet.

William Osler at His Desk at 1 West Franklin Street, Baltimore (Osler Library, Cushing Collection, CUS_046-025_P)

The following students will be presenting their research:

Philippe-Antoine Bilodeau – “A Tale of Two Brains: Cortical Localization and the Neuron Doctrine in the 19th and 20th Century” (Mentor: Professor Thomas Schlich)

Clare Fogarty – “Sanitation, Sanity, and (Moral) Suitability: The History of the Medical Inadmissibility of Immigrants into Canada (1840s-1950s)” (Mentor: Professor David Wright)

André Lametti – “Ars uero longa: Teaching Hippocrates in Medieval Italy” (Mentor: Professor Faith Wallis)

Faculty, students, and friends are all welcome to attend and show their support for this year’s finalists. Our special thanks to Pam and Rolando Del Maestro, the Medical Students’ Osler Society, and the Board of Curators of the Osler Library.

Getting started: William Osler Medical Students Essay Awards

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Essay Awards season is upon us! We are currently accepting proposals for essays as part of the William Osler Medical Students Essay Awards, established by the Osler Library and the Osler Society of McGill and endowed by Pam and Rolando Del Maestro.

Here are a couple hints and links to get started in researching a potential topic:

The History of Medicine subject guide, Medical Sociology subject guide, Biomedical Ethics subject guide are librarian-curated guides to the fields, with links to catalogues, databases, image and digital text collections, and references sources like encyclopedias.

Do you have a general interest in a topic but aren’t sure where to go with it? Start by a simple search in the McGill Library catalogue to locate a book on the subject. Particularly if you’re interested in a more historical or humanities topic, books are still a key source of information. Instead of jumping immediately to journal literature, try skimming a book on your general topic (or look through the subject guide to find a relevant encyclopedia), and see what piques your interest.

Are you interested in working with historical materials at the library? Get inspired by one of our numerous collections:

Anatomical atlases (potential sources for projects related to history of anatomy, surgery and its specializations, medical illustration, history of the body, history of medical education)

Paris Medical Theses Collection (a massive collection, for readers of French, covering many different medical topics from 1786-1920s)

Osler Artefacts (a rich collection of historical medical artifacts. See another example from our blog here)

Wilder Penfield Fonds (an archival collection, partially digitized, about the history of neurosurgery and the Montreal Neurological Institute)

Almanac Collection (ephemeral or informal publications like pamphlets that are filled with health and home tips and pharmaceutical advertising,19th and early 20th centuries)

Sir William Osler Collection (a collection of books, notebooks, letters, lectures, photographs, and many more archival records of the great physician himself)

Find more rare books and pamphlets by searching in the McGill Library Classic Catalogue. This catalogue only contains print holdings (no e-books or articles) and you can use it to narrow down your search only to materials in the Osler Library: Click the “Sub-catalogues” tab, then click “Osler Library of the History of Medicine” under the Library and Collections category.

Discover archival materials by searching in our Archives Database. You can search by a keyword in the description or browse by subject. Popular subjects include McGill medical student life through history, Montreal doctors, and WWI medical history. Additional archival materials about McGill can be found at the central Archives.

Proposals are due May 24th! Please don’t hesitate to contact the library at osler.library@mcgill.ca if you’d like to make an appointment to view materials or meet with a librarian.

 

Osler Day 2016

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Osler Library Board of Curators' medal

Osler Library Board of Curators’ medal

Come join us this Wednesday, October 26th for Osler Day 2016!

The Pam and Rolando Del Maestro William Osler Medical Students Essay Contest has selected three  finalists who will each have the opportunity to present before the judges panel from 11:30-1:00pm in the Jonathan C. Meakins Auditorium, McIntyre Medical Building 5th Floor, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler.

The 2016 finalists are:

“Being placed at the Douglas Mental Health Institute for the family medicine shadowing program in first year was quite the adventure for me. Over time, I became increasingly interested in the history of mental health institutions like the Douglas, mental health care policies and more broadly, the history of psychiatry as a medical field.”

 

“As medical students, we are exposed to plenty of dogmas. Yet, medical dogma, like everything else in the world is susceptible to error. In accepting this, I sought to elucidate the origins of the formerly accepted belief that newborns did not feel pain”

Faculty, students, and friends are all welcome to attend and show their support for this year’s finalists. More details about the contest can be found here. Our special thanks to the Medical Students’ Osler Society, the Board of Curators of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, and Pam and Rolando Del Maestro for their continued dedication with this celebrated annual event.

julio-biv__03_2In the evening, at 6:00pm in the Charles F. Martin Amphitheatre, the 39th Annual Osler Lectureship welcomes distinguished guest lecturer Dr. Julio SG Montaner, OC, OBC, MD, DSc (hon), FRCPC, FCCP, FACP, FRSC.

Director, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St. Paul’s Hospital, Providence Healthcare; Professor and Head, UBC-Division of AIDS, UBC and St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation Chair in AIDS Research; UNAIDS Special Advisor on HIV Therapeutics.

Dr. Montaner played a key role in establishing the efficacy of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) and since then has established the role of ‘Treatment as Prevention’ using HAART to simultaneously decrease progression to AIDS and death, as well as HIV transmission.

From Treatment to Prevention: Rethinking our Approach to Contagious Diseases

In 1996, medical researchers in British Columbia discovered that combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) significantly improved the quality and length of the lives of patients with HIV/AIDS, but only after the province began providing cART for free did researchers discover something equally profound: cART also prevented HIV transmission. This talk examines the journey from treatment to prevention and the implications for how we fight contagious diseases at local and global levels.

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Medical Students Essay Awards 2015

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Pam and Rolando Del Maestro with Steph A. Pang (holding medal), Zhuyin Xu, and Christian Dabrowski. Photo: Owen Egan.

Pam and Rolando Del Maestro with Steph A. Pang (holding medal), Zhuyin Xu, and Christian Dabrowski. Photo: Owen Egan.

We are happy to announce that the winning essays from this year’s Pam and Rolando Del Maestro William Osler Medical Students Essay Awards are now available on our website, along with reflective pieces written by the students on their research experience.

First place went to Steph A. Pang for her essay entitled, “Man and his Health Pavilion: An Architectural Reinterpretation of the Patient-Doctor Relationship.” She was mentored by Prof. Annmarie Adams of the McGill School of Architecture and the Osler’s Library’s Board of Curators. She was presented with the Osler Library Board of Curators’ Medal during the Osler Banquet hosted by the McGill Osler Society on November 4.

Second place was awarded to Zhuyin Xu for her essay, “Diffusion of Medical Innovations: Minimally Invasive Surgery in China,” written under the mentorship of Prof. Thomas Schlich of the Department of Social Studies of Medicine.

Third place went to Christian Dabrowski for his essay, “Between Commitment and Contentment: the Story of Norman Bethune in Montreal.” He was mentored by Dr. Nicholas Whitfield of the Department of Social Studies of Medicine.

Congratulations to this year’s winners!

The Pam and Rolando William Osler Medical Students Essay Contest gives undergraduate medical students the opportunity to explore any theme of interest to them in the history, social studies, sociology, ethics, and humanities of the health sciences. It also provides them with the chance to be mentored by an expert in their topic drawn from the Library’s Board of Curators or elsewhere to complete their project, and to use the rich resources of the Osler Library and other libraries at McGill.To find out more about the contest, please visit our informational page.

Join us on Osler Day!

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CoatOfArmsPlease join the library on this year’s Osler Day, Wednesday, November 4th, for a presentation of essays by the three finalists chosen as part of the Pam and Rolando Del Maestro William Osler Medical Students Essay Awards. The presentations will be held at 11:30 in the McIntyre Medical Building, room 1034.

The following students will be presenting their research:

Christian Dabrowski, “Between Commitment and Contentment: the Story of Norman Bethune in Montreal.”

Steph A. Pang, “Man and his Health Pavilion: An Architectural Reinterpretation of the Patient-Doctor Relationship.”

Zhu Yin Xu, “Diffusion of Medical Innovations: Minimally Invasive Surgery in China.”

2014 Osler Essay Contest Winners

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Osler Library Board of Curators' medal

Osler Library Board of Curators’ medal

The three winning essays from the 2014 round of the Osler Society and Osler Library Board of Curators Essay Contest have now been made available on our website. There was a tie for first place this year between Julian Z. Xue and Gabriel Devlin. In the essay “On Sir William Osler’s Relationship with Death,” Julian Xue (MDCM 2014) examines Osler’s personal experience of loss and argues that these encounters with death moulded his views both philosophically and practically. Gabriel Devlin (MDCM 2017) contrasts the patient-doctor relationship in North American and Southern Europe, finding that while medical paternalism was tempered in North America in the mid-20th century due to public scandals involving medical experimentation and the anti-paternalism of equal rights movements, it continues to shape doctor-patient interactions around the Mediterranean. Third place in the contest was awarded to David Benrimoh for his essay “The Zeroth Law of Medicine,” which investigates the role of physicians and the American Medical Association as an largely oppositional force in the move towards universal health care coverage in the United States. Congratulations to the winners!

The Osler Society and Osler Library Board of Curators Essay Contest was founded in 2013 to promote student research in the history, social studies, sociology, ethics, and humanities of the health sciences. Participants select a topic and are then mentored by an expert drawn from the Osler Library’s Board of Curators or elsewhere to complete their project, drawing on the rich resources of the library. The three top finalists present their essays on Osler Day in November. Prizes are awarded t of $250 for third place, $500 for second place, and $1,000 for the winning essay. The first-place winner is also awarded the Osler Library Board of Curators’ medal.

Interested in participating in this year’s contest? We are currently accepting proposals, due May 1st. Find more details here.

2013 Winners of the Osler Society and Osler Library Board of Curators Essay Contest

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Osler Essay finalists with medal and Dr Del Maestro

Osler Essay finalists with medal and Dr Del Maestro

In 2013 the Board of Curators of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine together with the McGill Medical Students’ Osler Society launched an essay contest and invited medical students to explore the historical, ethical, social and humanistic side of medicine. Twenty students submitted proposals and were matched with mentors drawn from the Library’s Board of Curators or elsewhere. Eight students submitted 3,000 word essays and short reflective pieces, from which three finalists were selected and presented their research on Osler Day, November 6th, 2013.

The three essay winners were:

First prize: Jennifer Pors for her essay Blood Ties: A History of Blood Transfusion. Her mentor was Professor Faith Wallis, History Professor and member of the Board of Curators. She received the Osler Board of Curators’ Medal and $1,000.

Second Prize: Julia Hickey for her essay The Predominance of Osler’s Humanism in the Practice of Palliative Care. Her mentors were Mrs. Eve Osler Hampson, a member of the library’s Board of Curators, and Dr. Thomas Hutchinson of the McGill Programs in Whole Person Care. She received $500.

Third Prize: Susan Mengxiao Ge for her essay Observation: The Importance of Art in Medicine. Her mentor was Dr. Jonathan Meakins of the Board of Curators. She received $250.

You can read the three finalists’ essays and their reflective pieces on the Osler Library website.

Osler Essay Contest finalists

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Tomorrow, the three finalists from the Osler Society and Osler Library Board of Curators Essay Contest will present their essays.

Osler at His Desk in Baltimore. From the William Osler Photo Collection.

Osler at His Desk in Baltimore. From the William Osler Photo Collection.

The contest gives undergraduate medical students the opportunity to explore a theme of interest to them in the history, social studies, ethics, and humanities of the medicine. Through the course of writing their essay, they are mentored by an expert in their topic drawn from the Osler Library’s Board of Curators, the Department of Social Studies of Medicine, or elsewhere.  It is also a chance to use the rich resources and expertise of the Osler Library to craft their essay.  Out of 20 student proposals, 8 essays were submitted and 3 finalists have been chosen.

  • Julia Hickey, “The Predominance of Osler’s Humanism in the Practice of Palliative Care”
  • Susan Mengxiao Ge, “Observation: The Importance of Art in Medicine”
  • Jennifer Pors, “Blood Ties: A History of Blood Transfusion”

Please join us from 9:30-11:00 in room 210 of the McIntyre Medical Building to hear from our three finalists. The winner will be announced at the Osler Banquet on Wednesday, November 6.