Abstract
The RANZCP Psychiatry Interest Forum (PIF) engages with medical students and prevocational doctors to encourage interests in psychiatry, particularly as a career specialty. PIF membership is free and over 3100 members are currently registered across Australia and New Zealand.
This year the PIF expanded its annual essay competition and held an exclusive competition for prevocational doctors, in addition to another competition for medical students. These competitions allow prevocational doctors and medical students to explore a psychiatry-related topic through a 1000–1500-word essay. The writers of the top three essays from each competition receive prizes of A$1000, A$500 and A$250, respectively.
Recognising that psychiatrists have important roles in disaster planning, preparedness and response, this year’s essay topic for prevocational doctors was “The psychiatrist’s role in responding to global disasters”. An assessment panel of members from the PIF Advisory Group selected the winning essays from amongst many high-quality entries.
The winning essay was written by Dr Anne Macadam, a resident (postgraduate year 2) working at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. Reflecting on her winning essay, Dr Macadam acknowledged, “I was actually on my psychiatry term this year during the first wave of COVID-19 in NSW and was able to witness first-hand the implications of this current crisis on the mental health of our community. I am also grateful to have been recently accepted [as a trainee] by the RANZCP and am looking forward to commencing training in psychiatry next year.”
Second place was awarded to Dr Christopher Lemon, a senior resident (postgraduate year 3) at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, followed by third place to Dr Tehreem Rawal, an intern (postgraduate year 1) at Western Health, Melbourne.
Dr Macadam’s winning essay is featured on the following pages. The second and third placed essays are available to read on the College website: ranzcp.org/essaycomp