The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) is inviting all high school students to enter its second annual essay contest for the chance to win a $500 gift card. To participate, students should describe in 500–700 words a piece of health care technology?a medical device or system?of the future. Essays should explain: 1) what the device or system would do, and 2) how it would improve patient care.
“Last year’s contest was such a great success, we decided to start a new tradition,” says Patrick Bernat, AAMI’s director of health care technology management. “This is a chance for high school students to learn about the opportunities that exist within the health care technology field and flex their creativity.”
To enter the contest, students should send their essays to Bernat at [email protected] by Dec. 1, 2016. Participants should use the following format for file names and email subject lines: ESSAY-LASTNAME. For example, a submission from Bill Smith should have “ESSAY-SMITH” in the email subject line and “ESSAY-SMITH.doc” as the file name.
Winners will be announced in January. First prize will be a $500 gift card; second prize: a $300 gift card; and third prize: a $200 gift card. All prize winners also will receive a one-year AAMI student membership. In addition, an article about the winning authors will be published in an AAMI publication.
“Next year will mark AAMI’s 50th anniversary, and we will be celebrating the innovations and milestones that advanced health care technology to what we see today,” Bernat says. “But we also recognize that the next 50 years of innovation lies with students. We are excited to see what the future looks like through their eyes.”
Last year, the contest attracted more than 250 entries. The winners were Stanley Rozentsvit from Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Brooklyn, NY, Katie Karmin from North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Ill, and Alicia M. McMahon from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, Calif. To read their winning essays, please visit www.aami.org/essaycontest2015.
