Four Qatari high school students have won a two-week scholarship experience in the annual Healing Hands essay competition of Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q).
Fatma Mohamed al-Abdulla (Qatar Academy, Al Wakra); Khalid Abdulrahman al-Nabti (Qatar Academy, Doha); Noora Abdulrahman al-Thani (Qatar Academy, Doha); and Sultan al-Malki (Qatar Science and Technology Secondary School for Boys) were judged to have written the best 800-word essays on the topic of regenerative medicine.
Each will receive the WCM-Q Doctors of the Future Summer Scholarship award, which allows them to travel on an educational trip to the US to spend one week at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and one week at Cornell University in Ithaca, upstate New York. A further 14 students were awarded Honourable Mention certificates in recognition of the high quality of their essays.
The contest, run by the Office of Student Outreach and Educational Development at WCM-Q, is open to Qatari students in grades 10 and 11. The programme is designed to inspire young Qatari nationals to think about careers in medicine and biomedical science. In total, 53 essays were submitted, making it the highest number of qualifying essays since the inception of the Healing Hands competition in 2008.
One of the highlights of the event was playing a video recorded during this year’s graduation celebrations of Dr Salah Mahmoud, WCM-Q graduate of the Class of 2023, who won the competition in 2013 and later became a student at WCM-Q.
The certificates were presented by Dr Rachid Bendriss, associate dean for foundation, student outreach and educational development programmes; Noha Saleh, director of pre-medical administration, student outreach and educational development; Dr Mohamud Verjee, associate professor of family medicine in clinical medicine; and Dr Adam Larson, assistant professor of English as a second language. The four were members of the contest committee.