psychiatry essay competition 2022

Medical Student Essay Award

Description.

Created to honor outstanding academic promise

Tips for Nominations

Submission by student to annual essay contest

Award Benefits for 2024 Award

• Complimentary registration for 2024 AAP Annual Meeting
• Up to $1,000 reimbursement for 2024 Annual Meeting-related travel and meal expenses
• Essay presented as e-poster at 2024 Annual Meeting

2024 1st Place: Y. Zhuang 2nd Place: Ruby Reed, Stanford University School of Medicine 3rd Place: Anneliese Mair, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

2023 1st Place: Brian R. Smith, Stanford University 2nd Place: Isabel Draper, Baylor College of Medicine 3rd Place: Serra Sozen, University of Vermont College of Medicine

2022 1st Place: William Thomas (Tommy) Baumel, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine 2nd Place: Eun Jin (Gloria) Yu, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA 3rd Place: Brittany Perry, University of South Florida College of Medicine

2021 1st Place: Sahana Nazeer, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine 2nd Place: Chloe Malava, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College 3rd Place: Mollie Marr, Oregon Health Sciences University 4th Place: Edward Tie, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

2020 1st Place: Jeff Jin, McGovern Medical School 2nd Place: Nicole Hadler, University of Michigan Medical School 3rd Place: David Jevotovsky, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

2019 Alan Elbaum, University of California - San Francisco

Your award includes complimentary registration for the AAP Annual Meeting, and up to $1,000 reimbursement for meeting-related travel and meal expenses.

The theme is: The Art of Communication in Psychiatry: Connecting with the Patient.

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2024 MEDICAL STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST ARE NOW CLOSED. 

Submission Requirements The contest is open to any student who is both currently enrolled in an accredited medical school (US, Canada, or anywhere in the world) and will be enrolled at the time of the Annual Meeting September 11 - 14, 2024. The work must be an original unpublished essay of 1,000 words or less . Due to an overwhelming response, ONLY ONE SUBMISSION PER STUDENT WILL BE ACCEPTED.

The top essay may be considered for publication in the Academic Psychiatry Journal in "The Learners' Voice" section. Essay winner does not guarantee publication in the Academic Psychiatry Journal . Please review the publication criteria when writing your essay here . Refer to MANUSCRIPT TYPE & GUIDELINES #8 The Learners' Voice.

Essays should be submitted electronically through the JOYN Awards Portal by clicking the link below. Please include a cover page with the following information:

• Student’s Name
• Name of Medical School where enrolled, year in school
• Mailing Address, Phone Number, Email Address

Selection Criteria

Judges will be blinded to the participant and affiliated medical school. Judging will be based on originality, uniqueness, flow of thought, and appropriateness to the theme.

Thank you for your interest. 

The AAP Abstract and Award Submission Portal for the 2024 Medical Student Essay IS NOW CLOSED. Submissions for the 2025 Medical Student Essay will open January 1, 2025.

For QUESTIONS ONLY, contact James Haliburton, MD, Medical Student Essay Subcommittee Chair, at [email protected] . All essay submissions must be made through the Award portal.

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2022 Duncan Macmillan Essay Prize competition: Winners announced

We’re delighted to announce this year’s winner is Dr Simon Williamson, Academic Clinical Fellow at the University of Warwick and core psychiatry trainee with Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust.

The Institute runs the annual 1,000 word essay prize competition named after psychiatrist Duncan Macmillan who helped pioneer a community-centred approach to mental health. The competition is held in partnership with The Royal College of Psychiatrists and promotes the expertise and knowledge of psychiatry trainees nationwide.

Simon’s winning entry answered the competition essay question “What’s the next big thing in psychiatry?” by exploring “ Digital Phenotyping ”.

Second prize in the competition was awarded to Dr Martindale, trainee psychiatrist at Devonshire Partnership NHS Trust, for her essay exploring “Teletherapy” .

Read both of the winning entries below.

FIRST PRIZE:  Digital Phenotyping

By Dr Simon Williamson, Academic Clinical Fellow at the University of Warwick and core psychiatry trainee with Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust

Introduction

Digital devices are now an integral part of our modern lives. Interactions with smartphones, wearables, and increasingly more immersive technologies comprise a substantial portion of our waking hours. Consequently, these devices can generate large amounts of data reflecting our behaviour; whether we are active or stationary, sociable or isolative, awake or asleep. For psychiatry, this data is a rich, yet largely untapped, resource.

Digital phenotyping is the 'moment-by-moment quantification of the individual-level human phenotype, in situ, using data from personal digital devices'1. In other words, it is the use of digital data to generate a behavioural phenotype that is both continuous and ecologically valid.

Observation of behaviour is fundamental to psychiatry, insofar as behaviour manifests mental illness. Often this must be done cross-sectionally, or retrospectively, and in clinical settings outside of the patient’s normal environment. Yet mental health tends to fluctuate over time, and is largely environmentally dependent, suggesting that current practice may be limited. Digital phenotyping promises to remedy this, and moreover offers the potential for a more objective, proactive, and personalised psychiatry.

Extending the MSE

The mental state examination (MSE) is a core component of psychiatric practice. It involves the inference of mental state through careful observation. Digital phenotyping provides new means to observe behaviour, in a sense extending the sensorium available to the psychiatrist.

Data obtained from digital devices is typically differentiated into active and passive forms. Active data requires some level of engagement to obtain, for instance the completion of a questionnaire (also coined ‘ecological momentary assessment’2). Passive data, conversely, is collected without explicit user notification. Common forms of passive data include number of phone calls or text messages sent, accelerometery (to measure physical activity), and geolocation (to measure, for instance, time spent at home). With the addition of a wearable device, actigraphy, heart rate and skin conductance also become available.

There is growing evidence that these data are genuinely informative. A recent systematic review identified several studies in which within-individual variability of depressive symptoms was well captured by the data, as was response to targeted interventions3. Another systematic review noted that, across studies, features sensitive to depressive episodes were also sensitive to mania, reflecting the bipolarity of mood4.

Moreover, work continues to generate new and informative features. Speech analysis, for instance, shows great promise in quantifying the dysconnectivity inherent to thought disorder5, whilst pulse wave analysis offers a more nuanced view of the physiology captured by heart rate monitors6. The emerging picture is one of several digital biomarkers of mental health which, in combination, could be a powerful adjunct to the MSE in inferring mental state.

From Phone to Phenotype

Whilst the rapid development of new features is exciting, combining them to generate clinically useful phenotypes is easier said than done. Real-world data is noisy, patchy, and notably sizeable. Unlike in neuroimaging or genomics, there isn’t a standardized method to analyse data from digital devices7.

So how can this be achieved?

The first step is to collect and organise data on the device itself. Several applications already exist for this purpose8,9. They are also capable of automatically uploading collected data to secure servers. Once uploaded, the data are likely to require some degree of pre-processing (i.e. cleaning) before extracted features can be selected for further analysis.

From this point, the goal is to effectively model digital behaviour such that it represents, with reasonable accuracy, the individuals mental state and functioning. The better the model, the more effective it will be at detecting changes in mental state.

Barnett et al. achieved this by statistically modelling trends in digital features over time10. When new data was significantly different to what would be expected from the trend, anomalies were flagged. In a small sample of schizophrenia patients, the rate of anomalies two weeks prior to relapse was 71% higher than at other time periods.

Even more promising are machine learning models, which are highly suited to large, multi-modal data. Currently, there is marked heterogeneity between studies11 and impressive model performance should be treated with caution12. Helpfully, guidelines to standardize reporting have been proposed11. As the field matures and shared databases begin to emerge, we are likely to witness increasingly powerful digital phenotypes.

Closing the loop

Clinical implementation is essential if digital phenotyping is to meaningfully impact psychiatry. When a good model detects changes in mental state, the opportunity to intervene arises. Such intervention is referred to as closing the loop13, and could encompass relapse prevention, early recognition of treatment non-response, or timely delivery of a digital therapy (i.e. ecological momentary intervention14).

Digital therapies in particular are decades old, and substantial meta-analytic evidence for their efficacy has accumulated15,16. A notable example of late is the Sleepio17 app, now a NICE recommended treatment for insomnia18. For inclusion in clinical practice, a coherent overarching system linking phenotypes to interventions will be necessary. Several groups have begun this work, starting with the development of ‘clinician dashboards’; interfaces for viewing digital data in much the same way as blood test results19,20.

Importantly, clinical implementation can only proceed if digital phenotyping is acceptable to patients. The ethical issues surrounding use of personal data are apparent21, and careful collaboration with patients will be necessary to ensure individuals are empowered by their data should they choose to share it.

Digital phenotyping is a fast-growing field with the potential to revolutionise psychiatric practice. Initial evidence has effectively proved the concept, with the next phase of large-scale studies currently underway22. Experts from multiple fields, as well as patients, are required to actualise digital phenotyping in its entirety. Centralised repositories for the registration of studies and sharing of data have been proposed13, which will likely help to overcome the current issues facing the field, such as heterogeneity.

Technological advancement has always exerted positive and negative effects on society. When considering digital phenotyping, we as psychiatrists must be careful to avoid blind enthusiasm on the one hand, or stubborn refusal on the other. We can, however, remain hopeful that a truly 21st century psychiatry is close at hand.

• Onnela, J.-P. & Rauch, S. L. Harnessing Smartphone-Based Digital Phenotyping to Enhance Behavioral and Mental Health. Neuropsychopharmacology 41, 1691–1696 (2016).
• Stone, A. A. & Shiffman, S. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in behavorial medicine. Ann. Behav. Med. 16, 199–202 (1994).
• Zarate, D., Stavropoulos, V., Ball, M., de Sena Collier, G. & Jacobson, N. C. Exploring the digital footprint of depression: a PRISMA systematic literature review of the empirical evidence. BMC Psychiatry 22, 421 (2022).
• Maatoug, R. et al. Digital phenotype of mood disorders: A conceptual and critical review. Front. Psychiatry 13, 895860 (2022).
• Spencer, T. J. et al. Lower speech connectedness linked to incidence of psychosis in people at clinical high risk. Schizophr. Res. 228, 493–501 (2021).
• Williamson, S. et al. The Hybrid Excess and Decay (HED) model: an automated approach to characterising changes in the photoplethysmography pulse waveform [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. Wellcome Open Res. 7, (2022).
• Barnett, I., Torous, J., Staples, P., Keshavan, M. & Onnela, J.-P. Beyond smartphones and sensors: choosing appropriate statistical methods for the analysis of longitudinal data. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. JAMIA 25, 1669–1674 (2018).
• Torous, J. et al. Creating a Digital Health Smartphone App and Digital Phenotyping Platform for Mental Health and Diverse Healthcare Needs: an Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Approach. J. Technol. Behav. Sci. 4, 73–85 (2019).
• Wang, R. et al. CrossCheck: toward passive sensing and detection of mental health changes in people with schizophrenia. in Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing 886–897 (ACM, 2016). doi:10.1145/2971648.2971740.
• Barnett, I. et al. Relapse prediction in schizophrenia through digital phenotyping: a pilot study. Neuropsychopharmacology 43, 1660–1666 (2018).
• Benoit, J., Onyeaka, H., Keshavan, M. & Torous, J. Systematic Review of Digital Phenotyping and Machine Learning in Psychosis Spectrum Illnesses. Harv. Rev. Psychiatry 28, 296–304 (2020).
• Liu, Y., Chen, P.-H. C., Krause, J. & Peng, L. How to Read Articles That Use Machine Learning: Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature. JAMA 322, 1806–1816 (2019).
• Huckvale, K., Venkatesh, S. & Christensen, H. Toward clinical digital phenotyping: a timely opportunity to consider purpose, quality, and safety. Npj Digit. Med. 2, 1–11 (2019).
• Heron, K. E. & Smyth, J. M. Ecological Momentary Interventions: Incorporating Mobile Technology Into Psychosocial and Health Behavior Treatments. Br. J. Health Psychol. 15, 1–39 (2010).
• Moshe, I. et al. Digital interventions for the treatment of depression: A meta-analytic review. Psychol. Bull. 147, 749–786 (2021).
• Pauley, D., Cuijpers, P., Papola, D., Miguel, C. & Karyotaki, E. Two decades of digital interventions for anxiety disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis of treatment effectiveness. Psychol. Med. 1–13 (2021) doi:10.1017/S0033291721001999.
• sleepio.com. Sleepio. Sleepio https://www.sleepio.com.
• Overview | Sleepio to treat insomnia and insomnia symptoms | Guidance | NICE. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/mtg70.
• Wang, X. et al. HOPES: An Integrative Digital Phenotyping Platform for Data Collection, Monitoring, and Machine Learning. J. Med. Internet Res. 23, e23984 (2021).
• Zlatintsi, A. et al. E-Prevention: Advanced Support System for Monitoring and Relapse Prevention in Patients with Psychotic Disorders Analyzing Long-Term Multimodal Data from Wearables and Video Captures. Sensors 22, 7544 (2022).
• Birk, R., Lavis, A., Lucivero, F. & Samuel, G. For what it’s worth. Unearthing the values embedded in digital phenotyping for mental health. Big Data Soc. 8, 20539517211047320 (2021).
• Matcham, F. et al. Remote assessment of disease and relapse in major depressive disorder (RADAR-MDD): a multi-centre prospective cohort study protocol. BMC Psychiatry 19, 72 (2019).

SECOND PRIZE:  Teletherapy

By Dr Martindale, trainee psychiatrist at Devonshire Partnership NHS Trust

We are in the digital era. That may sound automated and remote, not exactly what you’d associate with the warm and intimate world of talking therapy, but you need only look at how COVID-19 triggered a teletherapy explosion to recognise that maybe human connection really can be as effective behind a screen, at the click of a mouse or punched out on the keyboard. As digital innovations continue to reshape our lives, psychiatry cannot afford to waste a byte.

Psychiatrists have been calling for more funding into mental health services for years; at the same time, the pandemic has seen the number of people affected by new mental health problems grow. There has also been an exacerbation of pre-existing mental health issues. The mental health care waiting list in the NHS rose to 1.2 million at the end of 2021-22, and yet talking therapy services continue to be chronically underfunded.1-3 As those responsible for these patients, psychiatrists need to show leadership and look to meet the crisis in mental health care in alternative ways.

One way could be teletherapy. The great advantage of which is its convenience: available from the palm of your hand by text, video or phone at any time.4 Therapeutic support can be accessed quickly, with minimal hassle. It makes therapy easier to access and eliminates the need to fit a commute into a busy schedule with all the traffic gridlock, road rage, public transport issues and commuting time that come with it. Avoiding a commute is also a valuable feature for those with limited mobility, physical limitations, and chronic illnesses or those who experience anxiety about leaving their familiar place to attend public places: teletherapy offers the ability to connect with a therapist from the comfort of your own home.

Whilst it’s true that teletherapy from home can mean some of the nonverbal cues are missed, nonverbal information is by no means lost altogether. Facial expressions and body stance read through a camera still give cues to what someone is feeling; a pause is just as powerful; and a sigh, an intake of breath or a quiver of the lip reverberate over the internet too. Universal human longings and pain still unravel, seeped in all their mystery and meaning, whether it is work carried out online or in person. In fact, teletherapy may bring a greater degree of intimacy by offering the therapist the added benefit of gaining insight into the patient’s home environment. This can enrichen the connection and bring greater depth and authenticity to shared transformative moments.5 For some patients, the very presence of a screen can foster greater trust, helping them open up about their personal lives and struggles.6

Alongside the elements of personal privacy and patient empowerment inherent in teletherapy, is its potential to reduce the impact of stigma as patients can access services discreetly and no one else needs know about them.7

And whilst there is always the chance that the internet may freeze at a moment of emotional intensity or on the cusp of a breakthrough, fortunately, today, our technology is generally much more reliable, secure, and realistic than that of yesterday meaning those luminous moments are seldom lost.

Teletherapy offers substantial benefits to the clinicians and service providers too. It allows clinicians to treat more patients effectively in less time with fewer resources overall than traditional therapy. Several studies have demonstrated the cost-effectiveness of teletherapy:6 In a 2012 systematic review, the authors calculated that the probability of internet-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) being a cost-effective treatment was 57% (range 38% to 96%) relative to wait-listed controls.* One randomised control trial compared in-person group CBT with internet-delivered CBT for social anxiety. Patients were treated through a 15-module Internet-delivered program or 14 weekly group meetings and were assessed before treatment, immediately after and six months following treatment. The authors determined that the probability of Internet-delivered CBT being efficacious at a lower cost was 79.5%, if a patient is not willing to pay for the treatment. Although much of the evidence available at present relates to the translation of pre-existing programs rather than investment in the development of new programs (which is where future research needs to be focused) these data are part of a growing body of evidence to suggest a generally favourable effect of digital interventions on cost effectiveness.6

There is more good news too: existing studies show that virtual therapy, typically CBT, can be highly effective for improving various mental health diagnoses.6,8-10 A 2020 meta-analysis found that electronically delivered CBT might, in fact, be better than in-person CBT.11

But we still have work to do if we are to build effective talking services that do not simply endure but thrive when the current boom is no longer fresh. We need to overcome the residual obstacles associated with training, licensing, safety, privacy, payment, and evaluation.12 Studies are required to assess whether remote and in-person sessions are at least comparable in efficacy and success across the different therapy modalities in the medium and long term.13

There may be some valid critiques of teletherapy, but there can be little doubt that teletherapy allows an increasing number of people access to mental healthcare than ever before.14 This is a critical time when the latest NHS digital figures show that the number of referrals to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme for conditions such as anxiety and depression increased by 24.5% in 2020-21 to 1.81 million in 2021-22, higher then pre-pandemic levels of 1.69 million in 2019-2020.15 With the NHS Long Term Plan’s commitment to improving the availability and quality of mental health services across England, now is the time to catalyse change and embrace all the benefits that teletherapy has to offer.16

It was the father of talk therapy Sigmund Freud who said, “Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.” The medical profession is justly conservative but as the pandemic has seen marked worsening of public mental health, the answer that psychiatrists seek may lie in the fast-changing conditions.

* Wait list control group is a group of participants who do not receive the experimental treatment, but who are put on a waiting list to receive the intervention after the active treatment group does.

• Wiederbold BK. Teletherapy: the new norm? Cyberpsychology, behaviour and social networking, 2020;23(10):655-656
• Bannister R. Underfunded mental healthcare in the NHS: the cycle of preventable distress continues. BMJ, 2021;375:n2706
• NHS England. NHS mental health dashboard. Available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard/ [accessed October 2022]
• Boudin M. The Future of mental health and teletherapy. Sermo, 2020.
• Time. Online Therapy, Booming During the Coronavirus Pandemic, May Be Here to Stay. 27 August 2020. Available at: https://time.com/5883704/teletherapy-coronavirus/ [accessed November 2022].
• Gratzer D and Khalid-Khan F. Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy in the treatment of psychiatric illness. Canadian Association Medical Journal, 2016;188(4):263-272
• Fernbach RA and Papapetros J. Increased access to telehealth as a means of reducing stigma. NY State Psychiatric Association, 2022
• Andersson G and Cuijpers P. Internet-based and other computerized psychological treatments for adult depression: a meta-analysis. Cogn Behav Ther, 2009;38:196–205
• Langarizadeh M, Tabatabaei MS, Tavakol K, et al. Telemental Health Care, an Effective Alternative to Conventional Mental Care: a Systematic Review. Acta Inform Med, 2017;25(4):240-246
• Varker T, Brand R, Ward J, et al. Efficacy of Synchronous telepsychology interventions for people with anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and adjustment disorder: A rapid evidence assessment. Psychological Services, 2019.16(4), 621–635
• Giovanetti AK, Punt SEW, Nelson EL and Ilardi SS. Teletherapy Versus In-Person Psychotherapy for Depression: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Telemed J E Health, 2022;28(8):1077-1089
• Luo C, Sanger N, Singhal N, et al. A comparison of electronically-delivered and face to face cognitive behavioural therapies in depressive disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. EClinicalMedicine, 2020;24:100442
• Taylor CB, Fitzsimmons-Craft EE and Graham AK. Digital technology can revolutionize mental health services delivery: The COVID-19 crisis as a catalyst for change. Int J Eat Disord, 2020;53(7):1155-1157
• Markowitz JC, Milrod B, Heckman TG, et al. Psychotherapy at a distance. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2020;178(3): 240-246
• NHS digital. 2022. Available at: https://digital.nhs.uk/news/2022/latest-nhs-digital-figures-show-21.5-rise-in-number-of-people-accessing-talking-therapies-statistical-press-release [accessed October 2022]
• NHS. Mental health. Available at: https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/areas-of-work/mental-health/ [accessed October 2022]

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2022 Mental Health Essay Contest Awardee: Honorable Mention

Countless approaches, norah, maryland.

There are infinite ways to start an essay. Whether opening with a rhetorical question, famous quote, anecdote, or an unconventional one-liner, the opportunities when it comes to writing are endless.

The versatility of writing has always enchanted me. Despite my rigid life plan, writing has always provided me with an outlet and a way to tell my story.

I am a procrastinator… A I’ll turn it in ten minutes before the deadline kind of procrastinator. Here I am, six hours before the deadline of this essay contest, just now beginning to write.

I have known about this contest for about a month. Nevertheless, every time I have sat down to write it my hands become clammy, and the roof of my mouth goes dry. Suddenly, my body becomes numb and my thoughts are but a faint buzzing blocked by the cloudiness of my mind.

When submitting to previous writing contests, I have attempted to share a lot of stories, but never my own. At first, I considered flexing my impressive record with mental health advocacy in order to win you over…

I have testified to the Montgomery County Board of Education about requiring the number of school psychologists available within the county to become closer to the ideal ratio of one psychologist to five-hundred students. At the time that I testified, Montgomery County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, had a ratio of one school psychologist to one-thousand seven-hundred and forty-two students. These numbers may be improving, but they are still nowhere near what is necessary to function efficiently.

Over the course of the pandemic, I was on the founding leadership team for Uplift, a club started at my high school to destigmatize mental health through open conversations between students. Although it was slow to catch fire, when it finally did, it blazed, and since then I have been given countless opportunities to change the lives of those who come after me.

A week ago, I was able to participate in a conversation between staff and other students at my school on how to make schools within Montgomery County more equitable. One thing that stuck out to me was the inner turmoil that many minorities face. As a white woman, I do not see them myself, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that they do not exist. There, in a circle, surrounded by dozens of people of color who have undergone the cruelty that is racism, I saw the exhaustion and despair that contorted their faces. When I listened instead of fighting back, I could see the anxiety leaving their eyes. It became apparent to me that the battle against deteriorating wills and mentalities was more than just a two- dimensional domestic issue…It was a cultural and racial one as well.

What this country needs to fight for is equal access to mental health resources. Not only this, but there must be diversity within said resources. Different cultures have different approaches concerning mental health, and if we strayed from this very euro-centered vision of therapy, we would have more underrepresented teenagers reaching out for help.

And while this is all true, this doesn’t paint the full picture as to why I am so dedicated to mental health advocacy. For the past month, I have spent hours brainstorming ways in which to make this essay perfect. “Perfect” is the exact reason why I was never able to start this essay, and why my own mental health has plummeted within the past couple of years.

Throughout my entire life I have been considered gifted. A top student at one of the best high schools in the country and over five leadership positions to compliment my perfect GPA, I have it all. My parents are happily married, and I have numerous friends scattered about all of the different cliques that encompass high school. What would possibly cause me to spiral into a depressive episode or anxiety attack?

As contradicting as this sounds, my weaknesses lie within my strengths. The higher I achieve, the more scared I am to fall. Without constant validation, whether through my grades or extracurriculars, I feel as though my value is reduced to a terrifying state of nothingness.

School became a battleground for my emotions. There were points in class where I could feel my head splitting apart and nausea roll over my body in waves. My heart would skip a beat, as I struggled to grasp the level of perfection that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did not obtain.

I am aware that I am not the poster child for depression or anxiety. Extroverted and high-achieving, I have never walked the halls knowing that others are aware of my battles. Millions of teenagers can relate to this. Mental health is often something society swears that it can see, when really the destruction is littered underneath the surface. Schools across the country need to make the effort to reach out to their students. Without this basis of trust and communication, students will continue to shrivel themselves up into disappearance. Just like starting an essay, there are countless embodiments of mental health struggles. All are valid and deserve aid.

I still stand by my earlier statements. We need more school psychologists available, and we need psychologists from all different walks of life. I end this essay with a modified segment of my testimony to the Board of Education:

Amber Alert, Megan’s Law, the Ryan White CARE Act, and countless others all have one thing in common…They’re named after victims. These national laws all demonstrate a horrific pattern within our country. Why are we waiting for children to become victims before we change our policies?

Page updated September 20, 2022

September 2022: NIH Announces Winners of High School Mental Health Essay Contest

March 2022: National Contest Encourages High School Students to Write Short Essays Exploring Mental Health

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NIH Announces Winners of High School Mental Health Essay Contest

September 26, 2022 • Institute Update

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is pleased to announce the winners of the  2022 Speaking Up About Mental Health! This Is My Story  essay contest. Of the 200 submissions from high school students across 33 states, NIH named nine winning essays and six honorable mentions.

Supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the  Eunice Kennedy Shriver  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the essay contest encourages youth to talk about the mental health crisis facing their generation and share ways to reduce mental health stigma.

Winners were selected at four levels: gold, silver, bronze, and honorable mention. Winning essays and those receiving honorable mention awards addressed complicated topics such as suicide, anxiety, the challenges of stigma, and improving access to mental health education and treatment, particularly in underserved populations, including individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups.

NIH will award cash prizes to the contest winners and certificates to those receiving an honorable mention. Read the winning essays at nimhd.nih.gov/MentalHealthEssayContest  .

Gold Winners

• Ansh, California: Making the Invisible More Transparent
• Catherine, Illinois: No Longer Silent: Confronting the Stigma Surrounding Mental Health
• Morgan, New Jersey: Breaking Through the Barriers of Mental Health: This is My Story

Silver Winners

• Abigail, Maryland: Hidden in the Cracks
• Anusha, Washington: Unmasked
• Rohan, California: It’s Time to Rebrand Mental Illness: Addressing the Crisis of Stigmatization

Bronze Winners

• Aidan, Arizona: Brighter Days
• Evan, Texas: Mental Health Challenges in Young People: An Asian American Perspective
• Huda, North Carolina: It Starts in Schools: How to Solve Our Mental Health Problem

Honorable Mentions

• Evelyn, Virginia: If Only People Knew
• Leila, Ohio: Don’t Say Hope: Why Don’t Say Gay Bills Are a National Health Crisis
• Melvin, Massachusetts: Surviving the Pain
• Norah, Maryland: Countless Approaches
• Sydney, Minnesota: Mental Health Awareness: My Personal Journey and the Next Steps
• Veronica, Illinois: Stop the Stigma: Talk, Understand, Value

If you are in crisis and need immediate help, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline  at 988 (para ayuda en español, llame al 988) to connect with a trained crisis counselor. The Lifeline provides 24-hour, confidential support to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. The deaf and hard of hearing can contact the Lifeline using their preferred relay service or by dialing 711 and then 988.

Coronavirus COVID-19 Updates: uc.edu/publichealth

Stanley M. Kaplan Essay Award

Stanley M. Kaplan, MD, was an alumnus of the UC College of Medicine and a member of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience faculty from 1954 until his death in 2011.

In 1992, Dr. Kaplan established the annual Stanley M. Kaplan, MD Medical Student Essay Contest to encourage improvement in writing and research skills among medical students.

All U.S. medical students are invited to submit an original written work to the contest. Entries may include topical essays, case reports, review articles or original research. Entries will be judged on creativity, knowledge of psychiatry, style, and contribution to understanding important problems in any of the biological, psychological, or social dimensions of psychiatry.

Flyer - Kaplan Essay Award 2024 (PDF)

2023 Winners

First prize: “Investigating the impact of hoarding disorder media and social comparisons on individuals with hoarding symptoms” by Dr. Rebecca Henderson at University of Florida

Second prizes: "Anti-Social Personality Disorder (ASPD) in Females: A review of one patient case" by Mindy Le, University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine and "Stagnant daily smoking prevalence between 2008-2019 among Black and Hispanic adults with serious psychological distress" by Dana Rubenstein at Duke University School of Medicine

2022 Winners

First prize: "Adolescent Sleep and Mental Health Across Race/Ethnicity: Does Parent-Child Connectedness Matter?” by Marvin So, University of Minnesota

Second prizes: “The Predictive Validity of the DSM-5 Alternative Model for Borderline Personality Disorder: Associations with Coping Strategies, General Distress, Rumination, and Suicidal Ideation across One Year” by Kapil Chauhan, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC and “Rhode Island's Response for COVID-Positive Individuals Experiencing Homelessness and Housing Insecurity: A Qualitative Process Evaluation” by Isabel Chin, Alpert Medical School of Brown University

2021 Winners

First prize: "Marketing Medicine for the Mind: Mental Hygiene, Neurasthenia and Patent Drugs in Mid-1930’s Shanghai” by Richard Zhang at Sidney Kimmel Medical College

Second prizes: “Neuropsychological Comparison of Guilt and Grief: A Review of Guilt Aspects in Prolonged Grief Disorder” by Brandon Joa at Ensign, Medical Corps, USNR Sidney Kimmel Medical and “Racial Disparities in Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder: A Review of the Literature” by Faris Katkhuda at New York Medical College

2020 Winners

First prize: "Effects of duration and midpoint of sleep on cortico-limbic circuitry in youth” by Aneesh Hehr at Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Second prizes: “Genius or Madness: Neurosyphilis Among Great Artists in the Pre-Antibiotic Era” by Samantha Cheng at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and “AS TOLD BY A DAUGHTER” by Miriam Rosen at the University of Pittsburgh

2019 Winners

First prize: " The Case of Mr. P: Psychodynamic Case Formulation " by Shefali Hegde, University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Second prizes: “The Incapacitating Grip of Addiction: Reflections on a patient’s struggle with substance abuse” by Deborah Rose at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and “A Fortunate Man or a Bad Doctor? “Good Doctoring” in Two Voices” by Taylor Purvis at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

2018 Winners

First prize: “Stereotype Threat for Parental Education Level” by Lindsy Pang from Stony Brook Medicine.

Second prizes: “Ketamine as a Rapid-Acting Antidepressant: Promising Clinical and Basic Research” by Danish H. Ghazali and Andrew N. Tuck from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; and “The Mālaekahana Path: An Ecological Model-Based Intervention for Increasing Walking and Biking in Rural Hawai‘i” by Michael Harding at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

2017 Winners

First prize: "From Healer to Patient: a Journey of Misconceptions, Acceptance, and Growth," by Alex Carter at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Second prizes: “Psychosis management during pregnancy” by Virginia Ramos at New York Medical College and “Psychosis in a 22-Year-Old Woman with Narcolepsy after Restarting Sodium Oxybate” by Patrick Buckley at University of Virginia School of Medicine.

2016 Winners

First prize: “Associations of Childhood Adversity and Adulthood Trauma with C-Reaction Protein: a Cross-sectional Population-based Study,” by Joy Lin at University of California, San Francisco.

Second prizes: “Suicide Education in the University of Colorado Medical School Curriculum” by Sarah Allexan at University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, Colorado and “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and REM Sleep Behavior Disorder: Coincidence or a Cause for Worry?” by Stuart McCarter at University of Minnesota.

2015 Winners

First prize: “MAD WOMEN: A Brief History of a Twisted Differential Diagnosis,” by Arya Shah at Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota.

Second prizes: “Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead: On Fear, Narrative, and Writing with The Terminally Ill” by Richard Froude at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, Colorado and “Psychodynamic Case Conference Presentation” by Penelope Carter at University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, VA.

2014 Winners

First prize: "Identification of Differentially Expressed MicroRNAs Across the Developing Human Brain" by Mark Ziats at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Second prizes: "Biopsychosocial factors in rampage violence - nature or nurture?" by Amy Huang at State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, New York and "Neurofunctional Changes in Adolescent Cannabis Users with and without Bipolar Disorder" by Samantha Bitter at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sonya Kirkland Program Director for Education Phone: 513-558-5052 Email: [email protected]

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience

Stetson Building Suite 3200 260 Stetson Street PO Box 670559 Cincinnati, OH 45267-0559