The powerful story of our GP co-lead Dr Sarah Jacques was one of the winners at the Medical Journalists’ Association (MJA) Awards.
Adele Waters won the Mental Health Story of the Year for her feature in the BMJ on doctor suicides. It featured Dr Jacques and her story of burning out as a GP.
Dr Jacques was at the MJA Awards ceremony in central London on Wednesday night to see Adele collect her award.
The judges said the story was ‘a detailed account of an important issue, which rarely reaches the headlines’.
Doctors under pressure
They added: “Adele highlights the increasing pressure that doctors are under. The statistics and stories are startling and the scope of her research, along with acknowledging the complexity and avoiding oversimplification is impressive. A strong and affecting article.”
Watch Adele talking about her award and meeting Dr Jacques for the first time at the awards ceremony.
DAUK co-chairs Ms Helen Fernandes and Dr Ellen Welch were also at the ceremony.
We sponsored the Feature of the Year (Specialist Audience) category, with Ms Fernandes presenting the award.
Simar Bijaj won it for a feature in Nature The World Was on Track To End the Aids Epidemic. Then Trump Came.
MJA Awards
The judges said: “Outstanding is the only way to describe this first in-depth account of how President Trump’s abrupt freeze on PEPAR funding is unravelling two decades of HIV progress.
“It’s a masterly piece of journalism, which draws on an impressively wide range of interviews from all over the world and uses jaw dropping statistics to convey what is likely to happen if global funding is not restored.”
The BBC’s Camilla Horrox, Fergus Walsh, and Joshua Falcon won the headline award for Outstanding Contribution to Health and Medical Journalism.
Their entry Assisted Dying, North America was voted the best of the best by judges. James Mole announced the winner on behalf of AstraZeneca, the principal MJA Awards sponsor. Earlier in the evening, the team’s report won News Story of the Year, Broadcast award.
A full list of the winners with links to their work is available on the MJA website.
DAUK and the MJA
DAUK is working with the MJA on a webinar to give doctors a greater understanding about working with journalists.
The association’s vice-chair, Emma Wilkinson, took part in a discussion on medics and the media at our recent conference. Watch the discussion again below.
DAUK committee members are all volunteers and speak to the media about issues facing frontline doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.
