Gonville & Caius College student Natasha Treagust (Medicine 2018) has won the Royal Society of Medicine Doubleday National Student Prize 2022.

Natasha won the competition, open to all UK medical students, for her essay ‘How can patient partnership help to improve equality as COVID-19 moves from pandemic to endemic’.

“I entered the competition over the summer as I found the question pertinent to reflect on and writing the essay enabled me to explore an area beyond the medicine I had spent much of the term studying for my fourth-year exams,” Natasha says.

“I did not expect more to come of this than it being a useful learning opportunity. I am astounded and extremely happy to have won this prize.”

Natasha is in her second year of clinical medicine and is at the beginning of her Psychiatry placement, after a month placed on the intensive care units at Addenbrooke’s, Cambridge. The 1,000-word submission was a way to focus on the patients at the heart of care and how she can contribute positively to the NHS.

As part of the award, her essay will be published in the journal ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ subject to peer review.

She adds: “In clinical placements you see a lot of the NHS and system and don’t have a chance to take a step back and have a general think. I really enjoyed doing this essay because it allowed me to reflect on a different area of medicine.

“Patient partnerships are key to the future of the NHS. The essay was a nice way for me to find more positive ways of moving forwards, away from the negative news headlines.

“I don’t want to be a cog in a system, I want to try to make sure I can do good by finding ways I can make a positive impact.”

In her submission, she explored care from systems to individual interactions with patients, considering their wider context.

“If we focus on partnering with the wider population, not assuming that we know what’s best, we’re going to provide better care and we’ve got a better chance of levelling the health outcomes for wider society,” she adds.