“I can choose to sit;” “Silence carries consequences”

Winners of the 2026 Building Trust Essay Contest reflect on the choices that shape trust and professionalism in health care

Winners of the ABIM Foundation’s fifth annual Building Trust Essay Contest offer fresh perspectives on what professionalism in medicine should look like—grounded in listening, collaboration, humility, and human connection. This year’s essayists explore how trust is built not only through clinical expertise but through the willingness to slow down, speak up, work across boundaries, and truly see the people at the center of care.

The four winners – along with brief excerpts from their essays – are as follows:

• Hayoung Ahn, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
  In that moment, professionalism meant more than mastering the material. It meant taking responsibility for the limitations of the system I was being trained within. Speaking up carried risk: of being wrong, of slowing the discussion, of stepping outside the expected role of a learner. But remaining silent would have reinforced a different message—that these gaps were acceptable, or worse, invisible.

• Cherry Chu, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine
  As a first-year medical student, my role in clinic was small: observing, listening, and occasionally helping organize chart information for ongoing research. But watching this interaction revealed something important about professionalism that I had not fully understood before. Professionalism is often taught as an individual virtue—integrity, accountability, respect. But in practice, professionalism can also function as a collective behavior: the willingness of clinicians to take responsibility for problems that technically fall outside their domain.

• David K. A. Donkor, MD, Wellstar Spalding Regional Medical Center
  Faced with complex presentations, my instinct leaned toward assembling diagnostic checklists rather than spending longer at the bedside. Efficiency was rewarded, while listening, though still valued, was compressed by time pressures and full patient censuses. I began to expect answers from investigations rather than conversations.

• Mackenzie Franklin, MD, MS, University of Virginia
  The stool became, for me, a symbol of professional identity. It reminded me that medicine is not only the efficient application of evidence, but a moral practice grounded in trust. Trust built in moments that are easily cut short; the extra question, the pause after a patient’s voice shakes. As a resident, I can’t control hospital policy or reimbursement structures. I can’t redesign the health care system. But I can choose how I inhabit my role within it. I can choose to sit.

“Trust is often built in quiet moments, when clinicians take the time to truly listen, connect, and see the humanity in the people they care for,” said Jessica Perlo, MPH, Executive Vice President of the ABIM Foundation. “These essays show how rising leaders are helping to redefine what it means to be a health care professional today and are bringing new urgency to the values of compassion, accountability, humility, and trust.” Honorable mentions were awarded to four essayists:

• Julissa Barrios, MD, Link Health
• Reem Matar, MD, MBBS, MPH, Mayo Clinic
• Jack Peterson, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
• Hamayle Saeed, MD, St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital

Essays submitted by current and future physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and others from more than 50 institutions across the U.S. were reviewed and scored by a panel of judges from across the health care system. Criteria included the (1) connection to trust and professionalism themes, (2) quality of writing, (3) novelty of the message, and (4) opportunity for others to learn.

Essay Contest Judges:

• Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA, Executive Director of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the ABIM Foundation’s Board of Trustees
• Erica Johnson, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs at the American Board of Internal Medicine 
• Jaime McClennen, MS, Senior Communications Manager at the ABIM Foundation 
• Benjamin Popokh, MD, family medicine resident at John Peter Smith Hospital and winner of the 2025 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 and a member of the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees 

Full essays can be read here.

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About the ABIM Foundation   The ABIM Foundation advances medical professionalism to build trust and improve care. To learn more about the ABIM Foundation, visit www.abimfoundation.org and connect on LinkedIn.

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