Mary G. Barry, M.D., editor of Louisville Medicine, announced the winners of the eighth annual Richard Spear, M.D., Memorial Essay Contest during the Greater Louisville Medical Society Presidents' Celebration on May 31 at the Muhammad Ali Center.

Among the winners was Nina Vasavada, M.D., assistant clinical professor with the University of Louisville Division of Nephrology and Hypertension in the UofL Department of Medicine who came in first place in the practicing/life category for her essay titles "The Unexpected in Front of Us."

The theme of the physician essay contest was "Medicine and the Unexpected" for the practicing/life category and "Using Technology in Medicine Without Becoming a Robot" for the in-training/medical student category.

Spear was a respected Louisville general surgeon who also served on the faculty of the UofL School of Medicine. When he died in 2007, he left GLMS a bequest to fund the annual essay contest. Spear wished to support high quality writing about the practice of medicine.

The winning essays will be published in Louisville Medicine's July edition.

In the student/trainee portion of the contest, Joseph Bales, M.D., a resident in the UofL Department of Emergency Medicine was the first of two winners for his piece, "The Machine in All of Us" while Sarah Khayat, a third-year medical student at UofL, was the second winner for her piece, "Hold the Phone."

Previous winners from the Department of Medicine include Michael Stillman, M.D., in 2013 for "'Dismaying' Number of Uninsured Kentuckians," and Sohail Ikram, M.D., FACC, in 2012 for "It's Worth It."