Building Trust Essay Contest

2025 Winners

• Rana Barghout, Weill Cornell Medicine
• Brittany Ezenwa, University of Texas Medical Branch John Sealy School of Medicine
• Adil Hassan*, a third-year medical student
• Benjamin Popokh, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Honorable Mentions

• Ashwarya Devason, Harvard Medical School
• Max Holt, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
• Manal Imran, FIU Herbert Wetheim College of Medicine
• Dominique Mosley, MD, Emory University
• Akila Muthukumar, Harvard Medical School

* Adil Hassan is a pseudonym used at the request of the author. 

Judges

• George Abraham, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School; Chief of Medicine at Saint Vincent Hospital  

• Margaret Flinter, APRN, PhD, FAAN, FAANP, Senior Vice President and Clinical Director of the Moses Weitzman Health System and its Community Health Center, Inc.; member of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees  

• Erica Johnson, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs of the American Board of Internal Medicine  

• Bruce A. Leff, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Transformative Geriatric Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; member of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees  

• Jessica Perlo, MPH, Executive Vice President of the ABIM Foundation  

• Margaret Sorg, DNP, MS, medical student at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine; winner of the 2024 Building Trust Essay Contest  

• Daniel Wolfson, MHSA, former Executive Vice President and COO of the ABIM Foundation  

• Heather Comer Yun, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Chief of Staff at South Texas Veterans Health Care System; member of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees 

2024 Winners

• Kaveri Curlin, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine
• Ella Eisinger, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
• Claudia Rivera Barbeito, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine
• Margaret Sorg, University of Kentucky College of Medicine

Honorable Mentions

• Melodyanne Cheng, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
• Nitya Devisetti, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
• Shannon Fang, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
• Meilynn Shi, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Judges

• Margaret Flinter, APRN, PhD, FAAN, FAANP, Senior Vice President and Clinical Director of the Moses Weitzman Health System and its Community Health Center, Inc.; member of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees

• Erica Johnson, MD, FACP, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center; Associate Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Medical Education for the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; member of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Board of Directors and Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Infectious Disease Board
• Jackie Judd, former reporter for ABC News, CBS News, NPR, and the PBS NewsHour; Secretary-Treasurer of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees; member of the Board of Directors of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation
• Elina Kurkurina, MPH, medical student at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University; winner of the 2023 Building Trust Essay Contest
• Bruce A. Leff, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Transformative Geriatric Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; member of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees
• Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs at the American Board of Internal Medicine; Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania
• Shannon Scielzo, PhD, Associate Professor and the Associate Director of Education in Internal Medicine, and Evaluation and Assessment Analyst for Graduate Medical Education at the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center; member of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Rheumatology Board
• Daniel Wolfson, MHSA, former Executive Vice President and COO of the ABIM Foundation

Winners

• Molly Fessler, University of Michigan Medical School
• Isra Hasnain, The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
• Ian Jaffe, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
• Meher Kalkat, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Elina Kurkurina, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
• Christopher Montgomery, UCSF School of Medicine

Judges

• Maria L. Belalcazar, MD, Vice Chair for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Texas Medical Branch
• Marianne M. Green, MD, FACP, Vice Dean for Education, Raymond H. Curry MD Professor of Medical Education, and Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine
• Lorna A. Lynn, MD, Vice President of Medical Education Research at the American Board of Internal Medicine
• Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs at the American Board of Internal Medicine
• David Reuben, MD, Director, Multicampus Program in Geriatrics Medicine and Gerontology and Chief, Division of Geriatrics at UCLA
• Annelise Silva, AMSA National President-elect, medical student at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine
• Rohini Siva, AMSA National President, 4th year medical student at Eastern Virginia Medical School
• Daniel Wolfson, MHSA, Executive Vice President and COO of the ABIM Foundation

Winners

Judges

• Andres Diaz, Editor of AMSA’s The New Physician, MD/PhD student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson
• Marianne M. Green, MD, FACP, Vice Dean for Education, Raymond H. Curry MD Professor of Medical Education, and Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine
• Shan Jin, AMSA Academy Chair, a third-year medical student at the NYIT College Of Osteopathic Medicine
• Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs at the American Board of Internal Medicine
• David Reuben, MD, Director, Multicampus Program in Geriatrics Medicine and Gerontology and Chief, Division of Geriatrics at UCL
• Michael Walls, DO, MPH, AMSA National President, graduate of Touro University California