Key dates for Hippocrates Initiative events: Venice, London and W Midlands

Below are key dates for forthcoming Hippocrates Initiative events

See  links below or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com for further information.

West Midlands

Saturday 15^th June – 10-11am at the University of Warwick Arts Centre, CV4 7AL

HippocratesPoetry and Medicine Readings at the University of Warwick Book Festival

Readings by Wendy French, Jane Kirwan and Michael Henry

Ticket £5.50

London

Monday 24^th June – 6pm – 8.30pm

Rooms of the Medical Society of London
11, Chandos Street, London W1G 9DR - 5 minutes walk from Oxford Circus

3rd  FPM Summer Evening Event: the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Reading by Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse at 2010 Hippocrates Judging ©Hippocrates Prize

Readings by winning and commended poets from the 2013 Hippocrates prize

Readings from Born in the NHS by Wendy French

Ticket £10 including coffee on arrival and closing wine reception

Venice

Weekend of Saturday 21^st – Sunday 22^nd September

Hippocrates Initiative Symposium on Poetry and Medicine

Venue: 15^th Century Palazzo Ca' Pesaro Papafava

hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Dannie Abse to read at Hippocrates Prize FPM Annual Summer event

The  Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine has been a major supporter of the Hippocrates Prize since it was founded. The FPM's 3rd Annual Summer Evening on Monday 24th June will be devoted to the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Highlights include a reading by poet and doctor Dannie Abse, member of the judging panel for the inaugural 2010 Hippocrates Prize.

Dannie Abse at 2010 Hippocrates Judging ©Hippocrates Prize

Venue
Rooms of the Medical Society of London
11, Chandos Street, London W1G 9DR - 5 minutes walk from Oxford Circus

The annual Hippocrates awards are in an Open category (1st Prize £5000), which anyone in the world may enter, and an NHS category (1st Prize £5000) which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff; and a Young Poets Award of £500.

The Hippocrates Initiative began in 2009 as the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine for an unpublished poem on a medical subject. The Hippocrates Initiative now also includes annual international symposia at which the Hippocrates awards are presented, an international research forum for poetry and medicine and The Hippocrates Press. Since its launch in 2009, the annual Hippocrates Prize has attracted thousands of entries from 55 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and from Finland to Australasia. With a purse of £15,000, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the most valuable poetry prizes in the world.

Registration costs £10, including coffee and a wine reception after the readings.

See link to register and for programme

Poetry and Medicine at the University of Warwick Book Festival

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine will feature at the University of Warwick Book
Festival at Warwick Arts Centre on the University Campus at 10am on Saturday 15th June 2013.

Download the programme

Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University said "The University of Warwick has a strong tradition in writing and literary events, and a number of Warwick’s excellent literary initiatives are represented at the Festival, including the Warwick Prize for Writing, the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine and The Warwick Review".

This session will be led by founders of the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine Michael Hulse and Donald Singer, and feature award-winning poets Wendy French, Jane Kirwan and Michael Henry presenting their work.

Support for the Hippocrates Initiative comes from the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the Cardiovascular Research Trust, The National Association of Writers in Education and the Institute of Advanceed Study at the University of Warwick.

Register

See more

New EU black triangle scheme for medicinal products

There are several key stages in use of medicines and vaccines in clinical practice when reporting on clinical experience of side effects and suspected adverse effects is particularly important.

In addition to a duty to report any serious adverse effect, times to be particularly vigilant include when a medicine has just been launched; when indications for use are changed – ie new patient groups are exposed to the medicine; special patient populations for whom experience of a medicine may be limited – e.g. children; new combinations with the treatment, with which unexpected drug interactions may occur. 

The European Medicines Agency [EMA] notes these additional categories: “ it contains a new active substance authorised in the EU after 1 January 2011; it is a biological medicine, such as a vaccine or a medicine derived from plasma (blood), for which there is limited post-marketing experience; it has been given a conditional approval (where the company that markets the medicine must provide more data about it) or approved under exceptional circumstances (where there are specific reasons why the company cannot provide a comprehensive set of data); the company that markets the medicine is required to carry out additional studies, for instance, to provide more data on long-term use of the medicine or on a rare side effect seen during clinical trials.”

A Black Triangle logo has been used in the UK for many years “to signify medicines that are subject to intensive monitoring" [MHRA]. This inverted Black Triangle logo will now be used in all EU Member States, with a list of 'Black Triangle' medicines and vaccines agreed Europe-wide, the first version released in April 2013. The Black Triangle will start appearing in the package leaflets of medicines concerned from autumn 2013.

See more on the EMA website on the new European Union wide black triangle scheme for medicinal products and vaccines,

 indicating that they should be subject to additional monitoring and reporting by health professionals and patients.

Painkillers: powerful drugs with important adverse effects

A new report in the Lancet from the Oxford Clinical Trials Unit provides an update on potential risks from newer and traditional painkillers of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug type. The report analysed results of a large number of clinical trials comparing these painkillers against placebo or against a comparator different painkiller. Studies were largely of high doses of the drugs, prescribed for relatively short duration - on average for under a year.

Below is a summary of my comments on the Lancet article provided to the Science Media Centre.

"In this pooled assessment (meta-analysis) of a large number of clinical trials against placebo or other pain-killer options, the Oxford Clinical Trials Service Unit confirm previous reports that the newer pain-killer drugs – coxibs - are associated with a clinically important increase in risk of coronary disease.

"Their major new finding is that among traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkiller drugs [tNSAIDs] – diclofenac, and possibly ibuprofen, but not naproxen appear associated with a similar increase fatal and non-fatal coronary heart events to the coxibs. However all naproxen, like all coxibs and tNSAIDs they studied, was associated with increased risk of heart failure and gastro-intestinal complications such as bleeding.

"The type of vascular risk with these painkillers appeared selective as none of these treatments were associated with an increase in stroke risk.

“Cautions include that we are not told about details of adjustments across treatment groups for degree of different cardiovascular risk factors e.g. from smoking as a source of bias. And the authors themselves acknowledge that their findings are largely for high dose tNSAIDs and for treatment on average for under a year. They note that they therefore cannot be sure whether the reported coronary and other risks would persist in patients on longer term treatment or on lower doses of these medicines.

“The paper underscores a key point for patients and prescribers: powerful drugs may have serious harmful effects. It is therefore important to be cautious when considering use of these medicines and to take into account cardiovascular risk, and risk of stomach or intestinal adverse effects, when tNSAIDs are prescribed or obtained over the counter, and when coxibs are considered.”

Many patients taking these tablets rely on them for relief of symptoms from arthritis and other long-term painful conditions. Patients who are concerned should consult their medical or pharmacist adviser.

See also articles by reporters on BBC Health, Reuters, Agence France Presse, CBS News ...

Winners of the Open, NHS and Young Poets 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

The winners were announced by the judges at an International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine at the Wellcome Rooms in London on Saturday 18th May.

More on the 2013 Hippocrates Awards:

Harvard poet and physician Rafael Campo wins Hippocrates Open International Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Psychotherapist Mary V Williams wins Hippocrates NHS Prize for Poetry and Medicine

English poet Rosalind Jana awarded international Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine 

Rafael Campo discusses poetry, medicine and his Hippocrates Open Award winning poem

Rosalind Jana talking about her Hippocrates Young Poets Award.

The judges also agreed 18 commendations in the NHS category - one each from Scotland and Wales, and 16 from England; and 20 in the Open International category – one each from Ireland, Scotland and Israel, seven from the USA and 10 from England, from the Isle of Wight to Yorkshire.

Open Awards

The £5000 open international Hippocrates first prize has been awarded to Harvard poet and physician

Rafael Campo

Rafael Campo. The second prize was shared by UK poet Matthew Barton, US Afghan war veteran Liam Corley from California and New Zealand poet Sue Wootton.

Rafael Campo said “I am delighted to receive this prestigious international prize. Through my poem – about a dying patient – I was able to address the power of empathy to combat the distance we almost reflexively adopt toward our patients and confront our own shortcomings”.


NHS Awards

The £5000 Hippocrates NHS first prize went to poet and novelist Mary V Williams from Shropshire,

Mary V Williams

who trained in psychotherapy.

The second prize went to former nurse Ann Elisabeth Gray who runs a care home Cornwall and the third prize was shared by family doctor Ann Lilian Jay from LLandysul in Wales, hospital chaplain Ian McDowell from London, and senior lecturer in midwifery Bella Madden from Milton Keynes.

Mary Williams said “My poem ‘Downs’ was inspired by my working in a pre-school nursery for special needs children, by their need for love and acceptance, and their ability to give back so much in return”.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the most valuable poetry prizes in the world, with a yearly purse of £15000.


Young Poets Award

English poet Rosalind Jana has been awarded the inaugural international Hippocrates Young Poets

Rosalind Jana

£500 Prize. 17 year old Rosalind Jana is from Hereford Sixth Form College in England. The award was presented at the Hippocrates Awards ceremony at the Wellcome Trust in London on Saturday 18th May.

The international Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entries were invited from young poets anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. The 2013 Prize attracted entries from young poets from the UK, USA and Australia.

The winning entry was decided by judge and award-winning poet Clare Pollard who also commended US poet Talin Tahajian from Belmont in Massachusetts.

Notes to editors

For more information about Hippocrates Prize winners and extracts of their winning poems, contact hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Hippocrates Prize website

EACPT Awards to be presented at August Geneva Congress

The EACPT has announced its awards for 2013, to be presented at the 11th EACPT Congress in Geneva 28th - 31st August 2013. 

The Special Award for services to the EACPT goes to Professor Michael Orme, who co-founded the EACPT 20 years ago in 1993. Professor was EACPT founding secretary then Chairman and played a major role in growing EACPT into a major international organisation representing all clinical pharmacology societies in Europe and their over 4000 clinical pharmacologist members.

The  2013 EACPT Scientific Award goes to Dr David Devos from the Department of Medical Pharmacology at the Université Lille Nord de France. The EACPT Scientific Award is for the report by Dr Devos, using methylphenidate as a new approach to treating Parkinson's disease. 

The paper, for which Dr Devos was corresponding author, was published in the July 2012 issue of 
the high impact international journal -  Lancet Neurology. The prize includes a 2000 € award.

The 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award of the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics goes jointly to Professor Sir Michael Rawlins and to Professor Carlo Patrono, for their outstanding contributions to the national and international benefits of clinical pharmacology for medicine, health care and patient safety.

 EACPT website. 

Official EACPT journal - Clinical Therapeutics. 

Young poet to receive new Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

The winner of the inaugural Hippocrates Young Poets Prize of £500 is Rosalind Jana from

Winner Rosalind Jana

Hereford Sixth Form College in England, for her poem ‘Posterior Instrumented Fusion for Adolescent Scoliosis’.

The international Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entrants were young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. The 2013 Prize attracted entries from the UK, USA and Australia.

The winning entry was decided by judge and award-winning poet Clare Pollard, who published her first collection of poetry at the age of 19. 

Rosalind Jana is a sixth form student and part-time freelance journalist. She won the Vogue Talent Contest for young writers in 2011 at age sixteen and has subsequently written for Vogue several times. She regularly contributes to Lionheart Magazine, Oxfam and fashion initiative All Walks Beyond the Catwalk. She has a conditional offer to read English Literature at Oxford. 

About the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize she said: “I'm very pleased to be judging the first Hippocrates Prize for Schools - in bringing science and art together, I hope it will deepen students’ understanding of both, and uncover poets of the future.” She added that the top entries were “extraordinarily accomplished for writers of 18 or under”. 

Of Rosalind Jana’s winning poem she commented: “It is hard to believe that a poem with

Judge Clare Pollard

such an ugly name can be so beautiful, but it is an incredible display of control and craft, formally brilliant and full of striking visual imagery - the shuttered murk, the meaty spine, the cloak of skin, the ‘morphine black blown out by light’.  It is both passionate and eerily detached - a deeply impressive piece of work.”

Hippocrates Prize founders clinical professor Donald Singer and poet Michael Hulse said: “We are delighted that the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is already having an international impact in inspiring a new generation of poets.”

The Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the National Association of Writers in Education, and the Cardiovascular Research Trust.

The Hippocrates Initiative – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for

Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts, and health.

To attend the Young Poets, NHS and Open Hippocrates Prize award ceremony in London on 18^th May at the Wellcome Collection and the related Symposium on Poetry and Medicine see http://hippocrates-poetry.org

Notes for editors
For more information about Hippocrates Prize winners and extracts of their winning poems, contact hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

About the winner
Rosalind Jana is a sixth form student and part-time freelance journalist. She won the Vogue Talent Contest for young writers in 2011 at age sixteen and has subsequently written for Vogue several times. She regularly contributes to Lionheart Magazine, Oxfam and fashion initiative All Walks Beyond the Catwalk. She has a conditional offer to read English Literature at Oxford. Further information can be found at clothescamerasandcoffee.blogspot.com

About her winning poem Rosalind said: 'At the age of fifteen I underwent an operation to fix my extraordinarily twisted spine. I had been diagnosed with scoliosis six months previously when my degree of curvature stood at 56 degrees. By the time I was offered surgery this had progressed to nearly 80 degrees. My backbone had compressed into the shape of a lopsided 'S', my right shoulder blade sticking out like a small wing and rib-cage barrelled to the left. I wheezed when I walked. Sharp aches and jabs of pain were expected. The surgical solution was to cut into my back, place titanium rods on either side of the vertebrae and screw them in place. This would manually straighten my spine and it would fuse solid over the next few months."

"Recovery was physically, emotionally and psychologically challenging. All that remains now is my scar. I am fascinated with its visual resonance, the way in which those complicated months full of agony and debilitation could have been reduced to a single, fading line of flesh. The poem was an attempt to express the strange disconnect between the skin I can see, and the muscle and bone lying beneath that my surgeon and his assistants worked with for five hours. I wanted to show how extraordinary a process it is and how intricate, messy and beautiful the body can be."

About judge Clare Pollard
Clare Pollard has published four collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Changeling (Bloodaxe, 2011), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She published her first collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, with Bloodaxe in 1998 aged 19. Her play The Weather premiered at the Royal Court Theatre and her documentary for radio, ‘My Male Muse’, was a Radio 4 Pick of the year.  She co-edited the anthology Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century and her new collection, Ovid’s Heroines, will be published by Bloodaxe this year.

More about the Hippocrates Initiative
The Hippocrates initiative was established in 2009 and already offers two successful annual poetry prizes, one open to submissions from anyone anywhere in the world, the other restricted to NHS employees (present and past) and UK health students. In each category a first prize of £5,000 is awarded. The Hippocrates Prize has attracted thousands of entries from 55 countries, from the Americas to Fiji, from Finland to Australasia, and prizewinners have come from New Zealand and the US as well as the UK.

Update from Paris on Geneva EACPT Congress 28-31 Aug 2013

The EACPT Executive Committee met in Paris 18th-20th April with as major business planning for the 11th biennial EACPT congress to be held from 28^th – 31^st August 2013 in Geneva.  

EACPT biennial congresses provide excellent opportunities to showcase issues of topical international concern to the CPT community.

EACPT Executive Committee at the Hôpital St Antoine in Paris

For the Geneva Congress, it has been confirmed by the local Swiss organisers Marie Besson and Caroline Samer that there will be 101 invited speakers from 21 countries - 15 from the European region and a further 6 countries internationally, from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, China, Benin and India. Close to 400 abstracts have been submitted from 57 countries from all 5 continents for consideration for oral and poster communications. 

 

Key themes at the Geneva congress will range from bedside pharmacology for special patient groups to pharmacology & toxicology, and pharmacology and society.

To register for the Geneva EACPT Congress, go to the Congress website.

2013 Hippocrates Poetry & Medicine Awards Symposium

A great opportunity to spend a day with an international speaker panel discussing the interface between poetry and medicine, at the Wellcome Rooms in London on Saturday 18th May.

Of interest to poets, patients, health professionals, academics and members of the public.

At the end of the symposium, Open and NHS awards for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry & Medicine will be announced by the judges at this 4th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine.

Register for the whole day or for the afternoon Hippocrates Awards Symposium

Symposium Programme

With a £5000 first prize in each category, this is one of the highest value awards in the world for a single unpublished poem.

More on the awards

The judging panel for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize comprises: Jo Shapcott, winner of the 2011 Queen's

Gold Medal for Poetry, Theodore Dalrymple, doctor and writer, and Roger Highfield, science writer and Executive for the Science Museums Group.

The 2013 judges met in London on 25th March at the offices of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine to agree short-lists for the NHS and Open categories for the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

NHS awards

Five poets have been short-listed for the 2013 NHS awards. For all 5 poets, it is their first time to feature within the Hippocrates Awards.

The judges have agreed a further 18 commendations. 12 are new to the Hippocrates Prize. Three have previously won top 3 awards in the Hippocrates Prize and a further 2 have previously been commended by Hippocrates Prize judges. One of this year's featured poets has been commended for 2 of her entries.

Open awards

Four poets have been short-listed for the 2013 awards, 1 from New Zealand, 1 from the UK, and 2 from the USA - one from California and 1 from Massachusetts. For all 4 poets, this is their first time to feature within the Hippocrates Awards.

The judges have agreed a further 19 commendations in the Open category.

Judging for the Hippocrates Prize is anonymous and entries are also presented to the judges in an order that avoids clustering of names of poets.

The 2013 Hippocrates Anthology of the 47 winning and commended poems will be launched after the Awards Symposium at the Wellcome Rooms in London on Saturday 18th May.