The HMS Department of Population Medicine announces a call for submissions for a $1000 prize for the best paper on a topic in Population Medicine written by an HMS or HSDM student.   Papers will be judged by an expert panel of DPM faculty, who will be blinded to the authors.  The student who submits the most outstanding scholarly paper will be awarded the $1000 prize. Students may submit papers individually or as part of a team of up to 3 students, in which case the prize will be awarded to all coauthors and the $1000 split equally among them.  All coauthors must be current students at HMS or HSDM.  Papers may be written in response to this call, as part of a course, as part of the Scholars in Medicine program, or as independent scholarly endeavors, but may not be published or submitted for publication at the time of submission for this Prize. 

Papers will be judged on the following criteria:  Description of the importance of the topic for population health, clarity of expression, and quality of writing.  Papers should have a maximum of 1200 words and up to 7 references.  They should be formatted according to JAMA guidelines for Viewpoint articles. 

The Department of Population Medicine is jointly sponsored by Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, the only such academic department in the country to link a medical school and a health plan.  DPM’s core mission is to improve health care delivery and population health through innovative research and teaching.  

Suzanne and Robert Fletcher met while they were students at Harvard Medical School, class of 1966.  Individually and jointly they have been national leaders in advancing the field of clinical epidemiology.  Their textbook, Clinical Epidemiology: The Essentials, now in its 5th edition and co-written with their son, has been translated into several languages. Among other contributions, they served as Co-Editors in Chief of the Annals of Internal Medicine and founding Co-Editors of the Journal of General Internal Medicine and were founders of the World Association of Medical Editors.  In 1994, they returned to HMS and joined the Department.  Suzanne directed the Patient-Doctor II physical diagnosis course for second year students and introduced the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) assessment to Harvard Medical School. Bob was founding director of the longitudinal Primary Care Clerkship.  Both continue as Professors emeriti in the DPM. 

Download the call for submissions HERE.

Address questions and submit entries by December 15, 2017 to: fletcher_prize@hphc.org