The SoR has announced diagnostic radiography student Fahima Begum is the winner of the 2024 Insight Student Writing Competition.
Each year the SoR hosts its academic writing competition, with entries open to students or recently qualified radiographers. The work must have been completed while a pre-registration radiography student, and the author must be a current member of the SoR.
All entries were judged by the Insight Editorial Board, with the five highest-scoring articles appearing in a special edition of Insight published on Thursday (5 December).
The article by Fahima, a student at the University of the West of England Bristol, centred on the barriers faced by Muslim women within the NHS’s breast screening programme. She pointed out that a number of factors, such as cultural sensitivities and immigration status, could contribute to health inequalities.
Jessica Tanner, diagnostic radiography student at Glasgow Caledonian University, clinched second place with her evaluation of how radiology departments can conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions. Third place was claimed by Aneesa Khan, diagnostic radiography at the University of Bradford, who conducted a survey on the clinical experiences of undergraduate diagnostic radiography students in interventional radiology.
Fourth place went to Alfa Marks, therapeutic radiography at St George's, University of London. Alfa outlined the need for service improvements in waiting times for NHS cancer treatment, and proposed an expansion in the NHS screening programme to include more cancers. Finally, fifth place went toJennifer McCarthy, diagnostic radiography at the University of Suffolk, who explored a radiographer’s role in treating struvite staghorn calculi (SC).
Praise for the top five
Professor Naomi Shiner, the faculty director of simulation across medicine and the health sciences at Keele University and member of the Insight Editorial Board, wrote a guest editorial article for the winter edition of Insight. In it, she called it her favourite edition of the year and praised the student radiographers who made the top five.
“Insight received many submissions and it is always difficult deciding who features in this special edition,” she wrote. “I would like to congratulate all the prize winners for their wonderful work but also thank all who submitted articles to this issue.”
Alex Rapson-Ballinger, editor of Insight, congratulated the top five and thanked those involved in judging.
“I would like to extend a huge congratulations to the winners of this year’s Insight Student Writing Competition,” he said. “The quality of entries was exceptional this year and all of the winning authors covered massively valuable topics from across the world of radiography.
“I’d also like to thank everyone who entered the competition for taking the time to participate, and also to all of our Editorial Board and reviewers, who volunteered their time and expertise to make this another stellar edition of the competition.
“For anyone who’d like to enter the 2025 Student Writing Competition, keep an eye on SoR.org for announcements in the coming months.”
Read the December Student Writing Competition edition of Insight here.