The Arnold P. Gold Foundation is pleased to announce the winning essays of the 2026 Dr. Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest. This annual program is open to medical, nursing, and, for the first time this year, graduate psychology students. Learn more about the winners here.
Medical students
- 1st: “The Shape of a Self” by Mohamad Adada, University of Central Florida College of Medicine
- 2nd: “At Eye Level” by Shriya Veluri, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Long School of Medicine
- 3rd: “Its Own Kind of Saving” by Hannah Willmott, University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Nursing students
- 1st: “Hear Her: Before the Silence” by MiaLisa Mossay, Florida State University
- 2nd: “Five More Minutes” by Michael Maloney, University of Missouri-Kansas City
- 3rd: “The Nurse I Never Met” by Katherine Jannusch, Texas Christian University
Psychology students
- 1st: “From the Chart to the Heart” by Jermon Drake, University of Pittsburgh
- 2nd: “The Weight of a Word” by Serena Bradshaw, Howard University
- 3rd: “Just Show Up” by Jean Pauline Serrano, University of California, Santa Barbara
The 2026 essay prompt was a quote by Sherry Turkle, PhD: “Face-to-face conversation is the most human — and humanizing — thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood.” Each essay writer reflected on when they or a team member worked to ensure humanistic care and shared that real-life experience in an essay of 1,000 words or fewer.
“The Dr. Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest offers students a meaningful moment each year to pause and reflect on why they chose healthcare as their profession,” said Louisa Tvito, Vice President of Programs at the Gold Foundation. “It also reinforces a deep responsibility to help create a healthcare system that is kind, safe, and worthy of trust. This year’s essays beautifully illuminate the power of listening, which supports healing for both patients and clinicians alike.”
The nine winning essays will be published in across three journals. The winning medical and nursing essays will be published in both Academic Medicine and Journal of Professional Nursing. Academic Medicine is the official journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Journal of Professional Nursing is the official journal of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Both AAMC and AACN are long-standing partners of the Gold Foundation.
The winning psychology essays will be published in The Journal of Health Service Psychology, the official journal of the National Register of Health Services Psychologists. The Gold Foundation welcomes the National Register as a new collaborator, as well as the American Psychological Foundation, which has supported outreach to graduate psychology students.
The essay contest is named in memory of Hope Babette Tang, MD, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and the Pediatric Medical Director of the hospital’s HIV clinic until her death in 1998 at age 36. Dr. Tang’s patients were often facing numerous obstacles on top of their devastating medical challenges, which made healing even more difficult. Her mantra in caring for her patients was “Whatever it takes.” Her approach meant she saw the person in front of her, not just their medical situation. Many of her acts of caring only came to be known after her death. She treated the whole patient, a hallmark of humanistic care.
The winning essays are chosen by an expert panel that includes healthcare professionals, writers, journalists, and educators. About 400 entries were submitted this year from students at more than 250 schools.
Read more: Meet the 2026 Essay Contest Winners.
