The 2025 Essay Festival theme is “Behind the Scenes Heroes”. The essay can take many forms:
Personal Narrative: Individuals are encouraged to share their personal experiences, stories, or insights related to “Behind the Scenes Heroes”.
Analytical Essay: This category invites well-researched and reasoned essays that examine the concept of “Behind the Scenes Heroes”, its historical context, current relevance, and future implications.
Creative Writing: For those who wish to approach the theme creatively, this category allows fictional stories, poems, or other creative writing formats that explore “Behind the Scenes Heroes”.
Guidelines for Authors:
- Please follow Journal of Surgical Research Ethics in publishing guidelines, as well as use of inclusive language found here: https://www.journalofsurgicalresearch.com/content/authorinfo
- Up to 3 authors accepted, at least one must be an active or candidate member of AAS
- Authors can be medical students, residents/fellows, as well as attending surgeons/ physicians or members of institutional ethics committee; diverse author teams are encouraged.
- Essay contest judges are not allowed to participate in this contest.
Contest:
- Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the AAS Ethics Committee.
- The selected entry will be published in a future issue of the Journal of Surgical Research (date to be determined), and the author receives a $750 cash prize.
- All entries will be published on the AAS blog.
- Authors will be asked to submit a brief 2-3 sentence bio and a recent photo. If you wish your entry to be published anonymously, please indicate that in your submission document.