Firchow Receives Honorable Mention in National Essay Contest

UK St. Claire is pleased to announce that Bradley Firchow, a medical student in the Rural Physician Leadership Program at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, received an honorable mention in the 2023 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in HealthCare Essay Contest.

The essay contest is named after Hope Babette Tang-Goodwin, MD, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, who devoted herself to the care and treatment of infants and children with HIV in New York City. It is an annual contest for medical and nursing students. The purpose of the essay is to have the students complete a reflective writing exercise that illustrates a time when they or a healthcare team member worked to ensure that humanism was at the core of care.

This year over 500 hundred essays were submitted from students in over 90 nursing schools and 110 medical schools.

Firchow received an honorable mention for his essay, “Kneeling Before the Patient: Medicine’s Spirit.”

Firchow is a National Health Service Corps scholar and plans to practice primary care in rural Central Appalachia upon completing his residency. He currently serves on the board of the National Rural Health Association Student Constituency Group, where he leads initiatives to engage students in rural health advocacy and policy development.

From 2017 to 2021, Firchow was a researcher and health communications specialist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, working on the Child Development Studies Team and serving in the Joint Information Center for the U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic response. He currently works for the Journal of Appalachian Health and conducts research on local health department capacity and planning.