Pegasus for the Stanford Undergraduate
Pegasus Wings: Explore the Power of Writing & Medicine (NOTE: PROGRAM IS ON HIATUS AS OF SEPT. 2024)
A shadowing and writing experience for Stanford undergraduate students interested in medicine as a career
Stanford Undergraduate Students interested in the program should contact Dr. Richard Shaw. After speaking with Dr. Shaw, students can apply through the Stanford Immersion in Medicine Series to shadow members of the Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford Group. Students will spend three mornings observing psychiatric evaluations of pediatric patients with severe and life threatening physical illnesses who are hospitalized at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Under the supervision of Richard J. Shaw, a Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and member of Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford, students will discuss their shadowing experience with the goal of developing themes for creative writing. Students will have the opportunity to submit their completed manuscripts for the Irvin D. Yalom Literary Award.
Preceptor: Jennifer Pien, M.D.
Stanford Undergraduate Participants
(alphabetical order)
Victoria Wang, Class of 2017, Biomedical Computation
The Irvin Yalom, M.D. Award is open to undergraduate and medical students, house staff, or fellows for an exceptional essay or creative writing piece—poetry, fiction, or non-fiction—describing an experience with medicine as a doctor, trainee or patient. The piece should be an unpublished original. We prefer submissions under 3000 words.
Depending on the type and extent of submissions received, we may offer an award for poetry and prose individually.
Submissions accepted until December 30, 2022. Please email submissions and your current student curriculum to Natasha Gupta (nbgupta@stanford.edu) and Dr. Steiner at (steiner@stanford.edu).
The winner will be announced at the annual Pegasus Physician Writers Visiting Professor Grand Rounds in March.
Winners of the annual Irvin D. Yalom Literary Award
2021
Prose Category:
Winner: Into the Abyss By: Blair Bigham
Runner-Up: Anatomy Lessons By: Grace Li
Honorable mention: 6 Feet Apart By: Richard Wu
Poetry Category:
Winner: EB By: Soo Hyun Choi
Runner-Up: Four Seasons of Addiction By: Megana Dwarakanath
2020
Prose Category:
Winner: Rebecca Grossman-Kahn, MD, MBA “Cold Coffee and Histology”
Runner-Up: Rachel Han, MS4 “The Manic Korean Patient: Refusing Labs”
Poetry Category:
Winner: Jessica Herrmann, MS1 “Transformation”
Runner-Up: Diana Lee, MS2 “Faces”
2019
Poetry Category:
Winner: Liana Meffert, MS1, “What You See Here, Stays Here”
Runner-Up: Sarah Kate Rosenbaum, MD, “Fire Is A Season”
Prose Category:
Winner: Lisa Robin Jacobs, MD, “Trapped In A Blizzard With A Politician in Withdrawal”
Runner-Up: James H. Lee, MS3, “Conversations with Joanne”
Honorable Mention: Pablo Romano, MS2, “An Education”
2018
Winner: Lara Prior-Palmer, "the water in which we swim"
Runner-up: Michelle C. Liu, MD, "Two Doctors"
Honorable Mention: Dexter Louie, MD, "New Psychiatrist, Overwhelmed & Delirious"
Honorable Mention: Harika Kottakota, "Hu-Man"
2017
Winner: Trevor Mooney, "Caddywumpus"
Runner-up: Anne-Sophie Bine, "Golden"
Honorable Mention: Allegra Padula, "Humanistic Tendencies"
2016
Winner: Grace Kearney, "On the Mind"
2015
Winner: Maya Kasowski, PhD, MS3