The Yvonne Carter prize

Dr Jennifer Ip and Dr Alice Ridgeway

The Yvonne Carter Prize is awarded each year to the final year student who, in the opinion of the Pro Dean Education and Head of MB ChB, has excelled at a discipline outside of their medical studies or has contributed to the life of the University of Warwick. This year’s prize was awarded to two winners: Jennifer Ip and Alice Ridgeway.

The winners are both accomplished ballroom and Latin dancers. In 2016/17 they were elected as joint team captains of Warwick University Latin and Ballroom Dancesport Club and during that year they taught classes every week, particularly to beginners to help them improve and develop their passion for dance.

They organised competition weekends and looked after all the competitors through the highs and lows of each competition day.

Debbie Ranger Elective Memorial Prize

Dr Amy Hart

The low resource setting prize was this year awarded in the memory of a dear friend and colleague of Warwick Medical School, Debbie Ranger, who sadly passed away last year. Debbie loved to travel and had many adventures herself overseas in her all too short life. She loved working at the Medical School and being involved with the MB ChB programme, which she annually volunteered to be part of the selection process for.

The winner of the first Debbie Ranger Elective Memorial Prize, Dr Amy Hart, chose to undertake an elective in emergency medicine and paediatrics in Pokhara and Nepal as she wanted to experience first-hand the impact of resource scarcity on healthcare provision and to experience different cultural attitudes to healthcare which broadly differ from those in the UK. The resulting report was a reflective piece set in the context of the different and multiple cultures of Nepal and it is obvious that the experience gave much opportunity to reflect on prioritisation when resources are lacking.

Elective report undertaken in a high resource setting

Dr Kassia Hitchcock

Kassia chose to undertake her project in two locations - at UHCW and Royal London Hospital - in order to gain a broad and contrasting array of experiences in two healthcare environments. Despite the UK setting, this elective exposed Kassia to medicine under some very difficult conditions as she undertook work with the air ambulance fast response car.

The Pridgeon Research Prize

Dr Luke Boyland and Dr Samuel Covins

The Pridgeon Research Prize is awarded to the graduate(s) who have undertaken research of the highest quality as selected by the Head of Medical Education, the Director of Postgraduate Research and the Pro Dean Education. Luke was chosen as a winner thanks to his strong portfolio of research outputs including a first author review paper on atrial fibrillation published in Clinical Focus Primary Care; a paper in the international journal of cardiology reporting an analysis of WHO global health estimates data, which outlines the changing face of cardiovascular disease over a 12 year period; and a case report in the British Journal of Hospital Medicine again in the area of cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation.

Sam was selected as joint winner of this prize based on the overwhelming support received from his peers alongside an emerging and well disseminated work stream in altitude medicine. He was the driving force and founder of the Warwick Altitude Research Group.