Departmental Prizes for Undergraduate Medical Students
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Professional Practice Prizes
- Year 1 Learning with Patients course - Professional Practice Prize
- Year 2 Learning with Patients course - Professional Practice Prize
- Year 4 GP Placement (PDII) – Professional Practice Prize
- Year 5 / GE Year 3 GP Placement (CBM) - Professional Practice Prize
These are departmental prizes for students undertaking GP practice-based placements across our courses in Years 1 & 2, Year 4, and Year 5 / GE. The prizes aim to raise students' awareness of excellence in professional behaviour and primary care scholarship.
GP tutors are encouraged to nominate any student they feel has shown excellence in their approach to their placement. This may include (but is not limited to): enthusiasm and engagement with clinical activities; punctuality and attendance; consideration of patient wellbeing; interactions with members of the practice team; critical thinking and reflection; scholarship and innovation. Tutors submit feedback to explain their nomination. At the end of the academic year, the central Primary Care Teaching Group will consider all nominations and award one prize for each course.
Details of these prizes are given on the relevant course Canvas pages.
The value of each prize £250
The prize winners will include a letter of recognition and a certificate from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.
Academic Year 2024-25 Inaugural Prize Winners
Year 1 Learning with Patients - Professional Practice Prize Joint winners: Freya Stevens & Ojas Rajkumar Nominated by Dr Laurence Leaver.
Freya Stevens
Dr Leaver's commendations: Freya: "Amazingly empathic with patients, an excellent communicator, and a good contributor to discussions." Ojas: "Always enthusiastic, very knowledgeable, and prepared for each session. Very personable and conscientious about asking patients' ideas, concerns, and expectations."
Year 2 Learning with Patients – Professional Practice Prize Winner: Conall Islip, Nominated by Dr Duncan Rourke.
Conall Islip
Dr Rourke praised Conall's:
- Enthusiastic engagement and enjoyment of reflective discussions
- Ability to facilitate group contributions
- Natural inquisitiveness and drive to improve
- Broad knowledge and lateral thinking skills
Aurnia Barlow
Year 4 GP Placement – Professional Practice Prize Winner: Aurnia Barlow Nominated by Dr Peach.
Highlights from Dr Peach's nomination:
- Intuitive skill in patient interactions
- Quick to learn clinical skills
- Respectful of all healthcare team members
- Described as professional, engaging, and polite by other GPs.
Year 3 Final Honours School (FHS)
This prize is awarded each academic year for the best FHS project undertaken within NDPCHS. The prize will be judged by a panel that includes members of the department familiar with supervising these projects, the Academic Lead for Engagement with Academic Primary Care (Dr Alison Convey) and the Department Coordinator for FHS (Dr David Nunan).
The value of each prize £250
The prize winners will include a letter of recognition and a certificate from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.
Year 4 GP Placement – Reflection Prize
The Reflection Prize is awarded to the student who has most effectively embraced the remit of the Extended Patient Contact Report. The winner is expected to have produced a thorough and detailed report which demonstrates exceptional reflection.
Value of each prize £250
The prize winners will include a letter of recognition and a certificate from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.
Year 4 GP Placement – Reflection Prize Winner 2023: Rose Faure
Judging panel's comments: "Vivid description of a patient's cancer impact on family life. Thoughtful, insightful, and honest reflection, voicing personal preconceptions and concerns."
MARTIN LAWRENCE OXFORD–NORDIC MEDICAL SCHOLARSHIP
The Martin Lawrence Scholarship is an Oxford-Nordic exchange, giving students from Oxford and Scandinavia a unique opportunity to gain experience of primary care in each other’s countries. Every other year, either a student from Oxford will visit a Nordic country, or vice versa.
The scholarship was set up in memory of Martin Lawrence, a former university lecturer and acting head of the Primary Care Department, who was an outstanding teacher of both students and fellow doctors. He had a lifelong commitment to medical education, both in the undergraduate and postgraduate setting, as well as strong links with the Nordic countries. When he died from cancer in 1999, aged just 55, it was felt that this Scholarship was an appropriate and lasting tribute.
The Director of Primary Care Undergraduate Teaching will notify Year 5 Oxford students when it is Oxford’s year for a student to visit to a Nordic country, along with details of how to apply for this scholarship. In the meantime, if you are interested in knowing more, please email: ugteachingadmin@phc.ox.ac.uk
The Moher Prize for Undergraduate General Practice
The Moher Prize was launched in 2019. It is a University award which seeks to promote innovation in primary care by the next generation of doctors. It is open to Year 5 students and encourages them to develop their knowledge and skills beyond the standard requirements. The emphasis is on creating work which is inspirational and original, ideally leading to an improvement in care for patients.
News
Ryan Danvers
The 2024 winner of the Moher Prize was Ryan Danvers with an innovative project promoting improved care for patients with Parkinson's disease.
"I am delighted to be the winner of the Moher Prize, as this was a great opportunity to engage my interests in EDI and innovation to devise novel solutions to critical problems affecting the lives of patients.
My project focused on creating a more equitable pathway for adult ADHD diagnosis in primary care, inspired by the prolonged waiting times individuals face in the current system offered by the NHS. Unfortunately, overwhelmed ADHD assessment pathways have forced those who can afford it to seek private assessment: further exacerbating pre-existing health inequities.
Acknowledging the severe impact of untreated ADHD on education, employment, relationships, finances and overall wellbeing, I saw this as an opportunity to work towards creating a more equitable solution to this problem. Within this project, I explored the opinions of GPs from 19 Beaumont Street on two proposed ways primary care could help, via: 1) improved recognition of ADHD particularly within underserved groups, and 2) up-skilling clinicians to diagnose ADHD within primary care.
I hope the insights gained from this project set the foundation for a more elaborate investigation into stakeholders’ perspective in the future, to potentially influence future revision of the adult ADHD assessment pathway."
There are a number of national Primary Care prizes for undergraduate students and we encourage you to apply. Please see links below for some examples.
Society for Academic Primary Care Medical Student Prize
(Previous Oxford undergraduate winners include: Martha Hughes – 2023; Hettie Davis – 2022)
Royal Society of Medicine General Practice with Primary Healthcare Prize
Royal College of General Practice/SAPC Annual Elective Prize
ASME (Association for the Study of Medical Education) Sir Jon Ellis Student Prize
The Moher Prize for Undergraduate General Practice - 2024/25
All Year 5 students are encouraged to submit a project to be considered for the annual General Practice prize. This University prize, worth £300, aims to encourage innovative thinking in Primary Care.
To be considered, students should submit a brief piece of work on a topic of their choice that is relevant to modern Primary Care. The judges will be looking for inspirational and original work (ideally projects might also lead to an improvement for patients and/or their practices). The aim is to develop knowledge or skills beyond the standard requirements of the Year 5 course.
Project Choice
Almost any aspect of primary care can be chosen as the focus of your project. Contributions which concentrate on diversity or health inequality or sustainability in healthcare are particularly encouraged.
- A reflective piece, perhaps about a patient or patients you have seen
- A proposal of how to change some aspect of working in a GP surgery
- A suggestion to improve the teaching of undergraduate primary care
- An audit (or Quality Improvement Project)*
*If you use the same audit as you undertook during your GP Placement you will need to demonstrate some additional learning or insights.
This list is not exhaustive, and for further advice contact: sophie.park@phc.ox.ac.uk (Academic Lead for GP Teaching)
Formats
Projects should be brief and innovative. A range of formats can be used:
- Video clip (maximum length 5 minutes) or
- Audio, such as podcast (maximum length 5 minutes) or
- A written report (maximum length 1,500 words)
As judges will be looking for brevity, there is no need for projects to use the maximum lengths given above.
Submission
- Projects can be submitted at any time. However, the closing date is 2 weeks after the Exam Board meeting that takes place following each summer’s ‘end of Year 5’ Integrated Summative Assessment’ exams (students will be informed of the exact date nearer the time, but as a guide this will usually be in July).
- Projects should be submitted by email to the GP course administrator, emma.wiley@phc.ox.ac.uk
Judging of submissions
Projects will be judged by a panel (including a patient and members of the GP teaching team). Marking will focus on original thinking, presentation, personal reflection and relevance to modern General Practice. To guide you, the detailed criteria used by the judges are given below.
Detailed Judging Criteria
- Students must have demonstrated satisfactory performance in all the course requirements for the Year 5 GP placement (ie all formative assessments, including Quality Improvement Project/Audit, as well as GP Tutor's report)
- Students must have demonstrated a satisfactory standard in the ‘end of Year 5’ Integrated Summative Assessment exams (MCQ and OSCE) at the first sitting
- If using video (or audio) of patient(s), appropriate consent should documented and included with submission
- Full marking criteria are given below:
Domain Scoring
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
|
Innovation & originality |
No original idea or thought demonstrated | Limited originality of content demonstrated | Good evidence of an original idea as a basis for the assignment. Good evidence of independent thought and application. | Excellent evidence of originality of concept. Excellent evidence of independent thought and application. |
| Presentation & Style | Poor communication of ideas in a chosen medium appropriate for the task. Poor construction of the assignment, failing to conform to conventions of good practice |
Limited evidence of communicating ideas clearly in a chosen medium appropriate for the task and inconsistencies of conforming to conventions of good practice. Limited evidence of original presentation style. |
Good evidence of communicating the idea clearly in a chosen medium. Good evidence of assignment construction conforming to conventions of good practice. Good original presentation style. |
Excellent evidence of communicating idea in chosen medium. Excellent assignment construction. Excellent original presentation style. |
|
Personal Reflection & Critical Thinking |
Insufficient evidence of critical thinking and / or reflection of ideas presented. | Limited evidence of critical thinking and/or reflection of ideas presented. | Good evidence of critical thinking and /or reflection of ideas presented. | Excellent evidence for arguments, which are consistent, connected and concise. Excellent demonstration of critical thinking and / or reflective practice. |
|
Relevance to Modern General Practice |
Insufficient evidence of constructed assignment being rooted in current general practice issues. Inadequate understanding of key contemporary issues of general practice | Limited evidence of assignment being rooted in current general practice issues. Some evidence of understanding key contemporary issues of general practice. | Good understanding with the assignment rooted in current general practice issues. Good demonstration of understanding contemporary issues and critically reflecting on these. | Evidence of an excellent understanding of current general practice issues and the ability to critically reflect on these in the context of the student’s idea. |