Call for Submissions: Trainee Writing Award

Exploring Purpose in Healthcare

Healthcare is often framed as a unique and meaningful profession. At its best, it offers the opportunity to make a real difference in people’s lives, fostering healing, connection, and hope. For many, this potential for helping others is intertwined with a deep sense of purpose that may have first motivated entry into the profession. And, yet, working within the field of healthcare can be complex, frustrating and, at times, overwhelming. During such times, an inner sense of purpose can make the difference between persistence and disengagement. Finding, sustaining, and redefining purpose over time is an essential yet often overlooked aspect of working within the field of healthcare.

We want to hear your perspective on Purpose in Healthcare

This special issue of the journal focuses on first-person narratives that capture the theme of purpose in healthcare. We invite submissions that explore how purpose may have influenced any aspect of your work in healthcare. For instance, how does purpose relate to your motivation to work in healthcare? How can a sense of purpose be restored and sustained following personal or professional setbacks? In what ways have you helped patients find or reconnect with their own sense of purpose?

Submission Guidelines:

• Current trainees in either a health professional clinical program or health-related research program are invited to submit a brief essay (up to 3000-words) focused on the theme of purpose in healthcare.
• Submissions can be made through the Commentary stream of the Journal’s online portal.
• A selection committee will review all submissions received before the deadline and the selected submission will be published in forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Whole Person Care.
• Please email the Managing Editor (emily.mannard@mcgill.ca) regarding any questions.
• Submission deadline: June 4^th, 2025