BCMJ writing prize winner: Ms Kristel Leung

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 58, No. 3, April 2016, Page 153 News

portrait of Ms.Leung
Ms Kristel Leung won the prize for her story "A Final Bargain"

The BCMJ is pleased to announce the winner of the 2015 J.H. MacDermot Prize for Excellence in Medical Journalism for the best article or essay by a student author: Ms Kristel Leung of the UBC Medicine Class of 2016. Ms Leung won for her evocative story of cherished relationships and life’s difficult moments, “A Final Bargain” (BCMJ 2015;57:158-159). 

Among many interests Ms Leung enjoys storytelling, drawing inspiration from her experiences in and out of the medical world, and endeavors to spark conversation and connect readers through her writing. In her spare time she also enjoys biking, photography, and playing board games. Ms Leung will be graduating from UBC’s Vancouver Fraser program and will embark on the next stage of her training with the Internal Medicine program at the University of Ottawa. 

The $1000 MacDermot prize recognizes a BC medical student’s significant achievement in medical writing (article or essay) and honors Dr John Henry MacDermot (1883–1969), a former editor of the Vancouver Medical Bulletin and the BC Medical Journal, and a past president of both the Vancouver Medical Association and the then-BCMA.

The BCMJ welcomes submissions from student authors, and awards writing prizes for the best BC med student submissions accepted for publication. BC medical students are encouraged to submit everything from full-length scientific articles, essays, and blog posts to humor, reflections, or criticism in order to experience the challenges and rewards of medical publishing. For more information about the awards, past winners, and how to submit content to the BCMJ, visit bcmj.org/jh-macdermot-writing-awards.

. BCMJ writing prize winner: Ms Kristel Leung. BCMJ, Vol. 58, No. 3, April, 2016, Page(s) 153 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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