McGill Osler Society

On November 5, students participating in this year’s Pam and Rolando Del Maestro Family William Osler Medical Student Essay Awards will have the opportunity to present the work they’ve accomplished over the past year, and you’re invited to join us!

The essay contest gives McGill medical students the opportunity to explore any theme of interest to them in the history, social studies, sociology, ethics, and humanities of the health sciences. The presentations will take place as part of the Medical Student Research Symposium, scheduled for the evening of November 5, 2024 in the Osler Library. Note, though, that this will be a hybrid event and you are free to join from afar.

Similarly, the Molina Foundation Osler Library Medical Student Research Awards provides medical students with another opportunity to undertake a research-based project using the Osler Library’s resources. These presentations will take place on Osler Day, November 6, 2024, and will be followed by the annual Osler Lectureship.

Follow these links to register for the Del Maestro Family Awards and Molina Foundation Awards.

Here we highlight last year’s essay winners and their reflections on the competition.

Meygan Brody, First Place, Del Maestro Family Awards 2023

Participating in the Osler Essay Competition was one of the most meaningful experiences of my medical school training so far. It allowed me to develop my critical thinking skills, to reconnect with my love for writing, and to work through challenging ideas. I explored some fundamental concepts in medicine—notions of patient autonomy and of patient-centered care, the concept of a good death, the meaning of pain and suffering… I truly believe that this kind of work and of reflection helps us grow into more compassionate, open-minded, and thoughtful physicians!

Amina Moustaqim-Barrette, Second Place, Del Maestro Family Awards 2023

While the science of medicine is often presented as universal and politically neutral, it is fundamentally linked to our social, political, and economic systems and the implicit priorities embedded within them. The Osler competition allowed me to explore the opioid overdose crisis in British Columbia through this lens.

The essay begins with a historical tracing of opioids in society, and suggests that current and past interventions to substance use disorder have largely been reactionary and medical in nature. It draws on Bruce Alexander’s Dislocation Theory to argue that the overdose drug crisis should rather be understood as a sociopolitical crisis rooted within the current era of neoliberal capitalism, and that any interventions enacted within this sphere will necessarily fail to address the underlying drivers of the opioid epidemic.