The Program for Humanities in Medicine (PHM) is pleased to announce the 2026 Health Professions Students' Creative Writing & Art Contest winners!
Prizes were awarded in poetry, prose, and art categories. Medical students were eligible for the Marguerite Rush-Lerner prizes while all other Yale health professions students were eligible for PHM prizes.
We are grateful to all the Yale health professions students who submitted wonderful works of poetry, prose, and art. This year, we received 110 submissions.
Please join us on May 7, 2026, at 5 p.m. in Cohen Auditorium for a celebration to honor the winners. Register here
PROSE
- 1st Place: T.J. Debicella, Yale School of Nursing '27, The Questions I Was Taught Not to Ask
- 2nd Place: Ella Shannon, Yale School of Nursing '28, 189.56
- 3rd Place: Chizobam Ugboaja, Yale School of Medicine '29, Mma, Grief, and Me
- Honorable Mention: Sanjana Ranade, Yale School of Public Health '27, The Lies of Birch Lake
POETRY
- 1st Place (tie): Elizabeth Watson, Yale School of Medicine '29, this year
- 1st Place (tie): Olivia Belliveau, Yale School of Medicine '26, Scar
- 1st Place (tie): Olivia Belliveau, Yale School of Medicine '26, I may have forgotten a few things
- 2nd Place (tie): Julia A. Chiemi, Yale School of Medicine '27, The oath's cost
- 2nd Place (tie): Caitlin Leong, Yale Physician Associate Program '26, hands
- 3rd Place: Alicia Clarke, Yale School of Nursing '26, Vitreous
- Honorable Mention: Yosra Raziani, Yale School of Nursing '27, Me, After
ART
- 1st Place: Isabella Gamez, Yale School of Public Health '27, The Danse Macabre
- 2nd Place (tie): Ral Vandenhoudt, Yale School of Public Health '26, Chickenpox
- 2nd Place (tie): Michelle Mantilla, Yale MD-PhD '33, Penicillin Pacman
- 3rd Place: Jasmine Jiang, Yale School of Medicine '27, In Remembrance
- Honorable Mention: Lenique Huggins, Yale School of Medicine '27, Patterned Beauties: The Marks We Share
- Honorable Mention: Megan Tachev, Yale School of Public Health '27, Respite
- Honorable Mention: Miriam Levine, Yale School of Nursing '28, Anatomy of Displacement: A Study in Medicalized Motherhood
Much gratitude to Karen Kolb, PHM Manager, for her outstanding work on the contest, and to this year’s contest judges: Aba Black, Terry Dagradi, JoAnne Wilcox, Muffy Pendergast, Sarah Cross, Lorence Gutterman, Melissa Grafe, Randi Hutter-Epstein, Kenneth Morford, Sharon Ostfeld-Johns, Vincent Quagliarello, Nicole Langan Maciejak, Ophelia Empleo-Frazier, Lacey Jones, Ash Alpert, and Anne Merritt.