A Doula's Patient Bond; Eye-Level Counsel; Translating Trust into Mandarin

In a series of award-winning essays, current medical students share their first-hand experiences of open, honest, and difficult conversations with patients and family members whose views or experiences differ from their own.

The four winners of the ABIM Foundation's third annual Building Trust Essay Contest – along with brief excerpts from their essays – are as follows:

Kaveri Curlin, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine

"You have to understand, this is a sixteen-year-old kid who maybe never learned how to have an open conversation about his feelings because some of those words don't even exist in Mandarin. Give him time."

Ella Eisinger, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

I am internally slack jawed, awed by the power of a clinician's authentic care to guide a patient toward a decision that will benefit their health. Over the next few days, I practice getting down on one knee, speaking to the person and not the pathology, and creating space for vulnerability. We talk about March Madness brackets, he agrees to starting Vivitrol injections, and I watch his eyes light up as he tells me about his daughter. The trust between us builds, and I start to write a happy ending.

Claudia Rivera Barbeito, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine

I rearranged the consult documents on my desk for the hundredth time as I waited for a call from an unknown number. When it rang, I took a deep breath and answered, greeting my first consult as an abortion doula. We were both nervous to be speaking to one another, yet in our vulnerability we found solace. I was a 21-year-old medical student, and she was a 40-year-old single mother of two facing an impossible decision.

Margaret Sorg, University of Kentucky College of Medicine

Trust is integral to successful medicine, and as a student, my responsibility to build trust does not end when I leave the hospital. One's lived experiences often take precedence over rationality and knowledge when trust is at stake – even though my brother-in-law is a highly educated, logical individual, he does not automatically trust the recommendations of a physician simply because they are rooted in science.

"Vastly different in scope, and highly personal and reflective in nature, our panel of judges selected from an exceptional group of essays that highlight the challenges medical professionals and students in training face daily in building trust with patients in a highly skeptical and increasingly polarized environment," said Jessica Perlo, MPH, Executive Vice President of the ABIM Foundation. "This year's winning essays offer the reader a refreshingly optimistic look into the future of health care."

Essays submitted by future physicians, nurses, physical therapists, and others from more than 40 medical and nursing schools across the U.S. and Puerto Rico were reviewed and scored on the (1) connection to the topic of trust, (2) quality of writing, (3) novelty of the message, and (4) opportunity for others to learn by an esteemed panel of judges:

Margaret Flinter, APRN, PhD, FAAN, FAANP, Senior Vice President and Clinical Director of the Moses Weitzman Health System and its Community Health Center, Inc.; member of the ABIM Foundation's Board of Trustees

Erica Johnson, MD, FACP, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center; Associate Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Medical Education for the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; member of the American Board of Internal Medicine's Board of Directors and Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine's Infectious Disease Board

Jackie Judd, former reporter for ABC News, CBS News, NPR, and the PBS NewsHour; Secretary-Treasurer of the ABIM Foundation's Board of Trustees; member of the Board of Directors of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation

Elina Kurkurina, MPH, medical student at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University; winner of the 2023 Building Trust Essay Contest

Bruce A. Leff, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Transformative Geriatric Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; member of the ABIM Foundation's Board of Trustees

Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs at the American Board of Internal Medicine; Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania

Shannon Scielzo, PhD, Associate Professor and the Associate Director of Education in Internal Medicine, and Evaluation and Assessment Analyst for Graduate Medical Education at the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center; member of the American Board of Internal Medicine's Rheumatology Board

Daniel Wolfson, MHSA, former Executive Vice President and COO of the ABIM Foundation

Full essays can be read here.