The winners will receive a prize for an essay on an aspect of chronic pain, of not more than 3000 words. The winning entries MUST be presented at the Pain Relief Foundation.
2023 Essay Competition
Click here for announcement
Entry forms can be downloaded here
The winning entries for 2022 below:
Daniel Cooke, 4th Year Medical Student University of Liverpool: How can the Utilisation of Exercise Programmes for Chronic Pain Management be Improved within the NHS?
Rosie Solomon, final year Medical Student from University of Leeds: The Chronic Pain Pandemic: How similar is Long Covid Chronic Pain to Fibromyalgia?
Emma Carville, Medical Student at the University of Dundee: Pain Management Programmes: are they worth it?
Rules:
Please note that the competition is a two stage process.
The initial entry requirement (application) is a summary of your proposed essay (see rule 15 and onwards) required by Friday 16th June 2023. From this, applicants will be selected and invited to submit the full essay.
- The competition is open to Medical, Physiotherapy, Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Clinical Psychology Students on a UK pre-registration programme at the time of the summary entry submission.
- The essay should be 3000 words or less. Essays of more than 3000 words will not be accepted. The word count does not include tables or references. PLEASE NOTE: The judges are looking for a well written, original and interesting essay, rather than a scientific dissertation, that could be presented using Power Point slides to a Clinical Pain MDT, if successful.
- The essay topic must be about an aspect of Chronic Pain.
- The entry must be well presented in MS Word format.
- Please provide a separate title page showing the essay title, your name, your university, your department and the word count. On all pages of the essay please put the essay title as a header, and the page number as footer. Your name, university, department or other identifiers should not appear on any page other than the title page, otherwise we will return the essay to you for modification.
- Essay entries must be accompanied by a signed entry form sent by post (attached – Entry Form TWO). Essays received without a signed entry form cannot be accepted. We cannot accept essay entry forms or essays sent by fax.
- Essays will be submitted as a Microsoft Word document email attachment sent to Lorraine.roberts@painrelieffoundation.org.uk using your university email account.
- Both the entry form and the essay must reach the Pain Relief Foundation by Friday 29th September 2023 – late entries cannot be accepted. We cannot make allowances for postage or email failure etc. We will notify you when we receive your entry.
- Only single author entries can be accepted.
- You must be available to present your essay to the Pain Relief Foundation in January or February 2024 to the Walton Centre Clinical Pain MDT. There is some flexibility in the presentation date. If the winner is not available to present their essay, then the prize will pass to the next best entrant who is available to present. Reasonable travel and accommodation expenses, up to a maximum of £150 will be reimbursed by the Foundation if we ask you to present in person, subject to receipts being presented.
- Relatives of staff or associates of the Pain Relief Foundation or the Walton Centre are not eligible for the competition.
- Any suspicion of plagiarism will result in disqualification. We will assess all essays using plagiarism software
- Essay writers will be notified of the results of the competition by the end of November 2023, by email. The three winners will receive a cheque for £500, after their presentation. There will be three second prizes of £100
- The judges’ decision is final for all aspects of the competition.
- Prior to sending your essay we require a summary The initial competitor entry requirement is a 250 word summary of the essay, with up to 4 references to provide: an outline of the topic, reason for selecting the topic, the scope of the essay, and a provisional conclusion.
- The summary must be submitted by Friday 16th June 2023 – late entries cannot be accepted. We cannot make allowances for postage or email failure etc. We will notify you when we receive your summary entry.
- The PRF will select the best summaries from each discipline to progress to the essay phase.
- Summaries will be submitted as a Microsoft Word document email attachment sent to lorraine.roberts@painrelieffoundation.org.uk using your university email account. Both the summary entry form and the summary must reach the Pain Relief Foundation by 16th June 2023 (attached – entry form ONE).
- You must provide a separate title page showing the summary title, your name, your university, your department and the word count. The references do not count towards the word count. The summary and references must be on a second single A4 page with the summary title as a header.
- Summary entries must be accompanied by a signed entry form sent by post (attached – Entry Form ONE). Summaries received without a signed entry form cannot be accepted. We cannot accept summary entry forms or summaries sent by fax.
- Timetable
Summary deadline: Friday 16th June 2023
Entrants selected to send an essay: informed by Friday 7th July 2023
Essay deadline Friday 29th September 2023
Essay Winners informed by: 24th November 2023
Essay Presentation: in January or February 2024
For further information contact
Lorraine Roberts Pain Relief Foundation.
Tel: 0151 529 5820 Fax: 0151 529 5821
Email: lorraine.roberts@painrelieffoundation.org.uk