Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The Wakley–Wu Lien Teh Prize Essay 2019: telling the stories of Chinese doctors

I'm on my way to China to talk with quite a few Chinese doctors, and so this recent item in The Lancet caught my eye:

The Wakley–Wu Lien Teh Prize Essay 2019: telling the stories of Chinese doctors

"Wu Lien Teh (1879–1960), a Malayan-born Chinese physician, made many firsts in China's medical history. He was one of the first students of Chinese descent to graduate in medicine from the UK's University of Cambridge. Wu published papers in The Lancet and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. One of the most outstanding of Wu's many contributions to medicine in China and global health was his success in leading the fight against plague in 1910, and his appointment as the chair of the International Plague Conference in 1911.
Wu shared many similarities with Thomas Wakley, the founding Editor of The Lancet. Both were brilliant doctors who also became inspirational social reformers. Wakley started The Lancet to “let in the light” and “cut out the dross”, and Wu founded many modern hospitals, including the Peking University People's Hospital (originally named Peking Central Hospital) in 1918, laboratories, and research institutions in China.
The Lancet has a long commitment to support Chinese doctors and patient care. We receive many submissions on concerns of tense doctor–patient relationships in China, and believe one response to improve the situation of Chinese doctors and these relationships would be to give a voice to Chinese doctors. Therefore, we launch the annual Wakley–Wu Lien Teh Prize in 2019 in honour of these two role models in medicine. We invite essays on any clinical topic of importance to health written in Chinese so that more Chinese doctors can share their stories of medical practice, which we hope will contribute to enhancing patient care in China. The Wakley–Wu Lien Teh Prize will follow The Lancet's annual essay competition, the Wakley Prize,1 and shares many similar standards. The Chinese essay could, like the 2019 Wakley Prize, also be “about the ideas, relationships, experiences, or encounters that make what doctors do meaningful, improved a patient's quality of life, changed doctors’ practice or research, challenged inequities, changed norms, or brought moments of recognition, humour, connection, or learning”.1 Submissions should inform, entertain, and enlighten us, and we expect originality and beautiful writing in Chinese."

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