Congratulations to the Class of 2020’s Kirsten Bock who is the 2019 recipient of the Annette E. Hacking Memorial Award in Medicine! 

The annual award, announced in August, is provided through the UBC Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and is awarded to a M.D. student with an aptitude for and interest in mental health.

“I am very grateful to have been considered for the scholarship. My psychiatry rotation was definitely a highlight of third year,” says Kirsten. “Mental health is such an important part of our overall well-being yet it is most often completely forgotten or stigmatized. I lost my dad to suicide when I was a child so the rotation offered me a different perspective and opportunity for healing that I never would have expected.

“I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to learn from the psychiatrists and patients that I worked with at the University Hospital of Northern BC. After my psychiatry rotation, I have found it a lot easier to talk about my dad, which is important as I think that any conversation about mental health helps to bring attention to such an important health issue.”

Kirsten entered her fourth year of studies this past July and is currently pursuing a two week clinical elective placement in gynaecologic oncology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton followed by four weeks of palliative medicine in Nanaimo, B.C.

She is pictured here on the West Coast Trail which she hiked this summer!