MEdIC team launches international competition for creative responses to Covid-19

Medical student and competition judge Nour Hobby's artwork

Announced on 20 July, the first-of-its-kind competition aims to bring together the global community of medical students.

The Global Creative Competition will provide a platform for medical students from around the world to reflect creatively together on their personal or professional experiences related to COVID-19. The competition is open to medical students from any university.

MEdIC, the Medical Education Innovation and Research Centre, is Imperial College London’s translational centre which uniquely brings together medical education, community needs and health policy into innovation and research that positively impact on society.

Director of MEdIC, Dr Sonia Kumar, said: "We hope this competition gives medical students a creative space to express what they have been through both on a personal level, as well as on a professional level, as many of them will have been working in clinical settings in very difficult circumstances."

The competition will allow medical students, normally concerned with science, to approach their professional work with a different skillset.

"The humanities give students a new perspective, a different reflective lens to view their role as an emerging doctor, ultimately making them safe and compassionate doctors," explains Dr Kumar.

Judges for the competition include Professor Dame Parveen Kumar (Queen Mary, University of London, and author of Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine), Rosamund Lupton (Sunday Times Bestselling author), Nour Houbby (Imperial College Medical Student) and Dan Simpson (Poet in Residence, Imperial College London).

Through the competition, Dr Kumar hopes that the world will become more connected through finding new ways of supporting each other.

"MEdIC is committed to medical education that makes a difference having real tangible positive outcomes for our global society. This competition really speaks to our vision and work, and we hope that by bringing the voices of our future doctors together in this way during this global crisis, we can start to learn from each other and how we can support our future doctors and their patients," she explained.

The two categories of entry are visual and literary. A winner will be selected in each category, along with two runners-up. Visual submissions can include comics, photography, drawing, graphic design, and sculpture. Literary submissions can take the form of short story, poem, and song.

Entries must also include the title of the work and a reflective explanation of 150 words relating how the submission relates to the participant and their future role as a doctor.

The top prize in each category will receive £300 and all of the runners up will be awarded £150.

Participants will be invited to an online exhibition and the winners will be awarded their prizes at an online award ceremony in the autumn.

For more details and to enter the competition, visit the MEdIC webpage. 

The deadline for submissions is Monday, 31 August 2020.