To encourage medical students to write meaningful poetry related to health or medicine.
Important Dates
Deadline for submission
Award Announcements
Winning poets must submit a W-9 form prior to the issuance of the award check.
2026 Awardees
Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society is pleased to announce the winners of The Pharos Poetry Award for 2026:
- “What we don’t see,” by Javier Montelongo, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
- “The physician’s salary,” by Eric Grin, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
- “As petals turn to ash,” by Maggie Weichert, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
- “Pharmacokinetics of grief,” by Joseph Turner, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
- “Dandelions at the loading dock,” by Shreya Katwala, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
The winners’ poems will be published in the 2026 Autumn edition of The Pharos. Congratulations to all!
Because of the large number of submissions (more than 500), we are unable to email every student who entered the contest. Thank you for your time and effort, and we encourage you to enter again next year, or consider submitting a poem to The Pharos. Review the submission guidelines on our website.
The Award
Up to 5 poems will receive a $1,500 award. The winning entries will be published in The Pharos.
Eligibility
Authors must be enrolled in medical schools that have an active AΩA Chapter or Association, but need not be members of AΩA. However, if an applicant is a member of AΩA, he/she must have active status. Only one entry per student.
Requirements
- Poems must be written while the student is in medical school, must be the work of a single author, and must represent original work.
- The poem may be on any subject related to health or medicine.
- The poem must be single spaced, single column, and not exceed two pages of 12-point type with minimum 1-inch margins.
- Please do not include any images or special formatting with the poem.
- The poem must not have been offered to or published by any other journal or entered in any other contest.
- Poems not meeting all requirements will be rejected.
- A committee of the editorial board of The Pharos will review the poems and select the winners.
Questions may be directed to
Submission
Alpha Omega Alpha is committed to upholding a high standard of professionalism, compassion and humanism in medicine. Patients should be treated with dignity and their privacy respected. We will not accept submissions to any of our programs that conflict with these values, or contain bigotry, or highly politicized content.
