George Lewith Prize for General Practice

This competition is now OPEN

The NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) invites applications from medical students for the George Lewith Prize, a single annual award presented to an undergraduate medical student in memory of Professor George Lewith

The award is open to medical undergraduates at any UK medical school. 

The winner will have their registration fees covered for the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) Annual Scientific Meeting, taking place from 24-26th June 2026 in St Andrews.

To enter the competition you need to submit:

1. A summary of a piece of work undertaken in general practice.  This could be an original research paper, a case report, an audit, a conference abstract, etc. This should be no longer than 3000 words (excluding references). 
2. A written reflective summary of no more than 500 words describing how the applicant contributed to the work.

Applications need to be submitted by 12 noon on Friday 24th April 2026 to: spcr@keele.ac.uk  

Timeline: 

MORE ABOUT PROF GEORGE LEWITH

Professor George Lewith was a leading figure in academic primary care, serving as Professor of Primary Care at the University of Southampton and as the SPCR Training Lead. In recognition of his remarkable contributions, particularly in the field of complementary medicine, as well as his dedication as a mentor, supervisor and training lead, the School established this prize in his memory.

Prof. Lewith sadly passed away on 17 March 2017, but his legacy endures. We are honoured to hold this annual competition as a tribute to his work, aiming to elevate the profile of academic primary care and inspire talented medical students to consider a career in this vital field.

RATIONALE BEHIND THE AWARD

Health Education England and the Medical Schools Council published ‘By choice – not by chance’ in 2016, as a mechanism to identify and address some of the issues impacting on recruiting medical students to careers in general practice. The report highlights several important issues, including the need for greater collaboration to raise the academic profile of general practice.

A common perception amongst students is that general practice does not offer an academic career pathway and that if you aspire to do research, a hospital specialty is the default position. To be successful academic primary care needs to recruit and retain the brightest medical students, providing opportunities for involvement in research at all stages of their careers. The Integrated Academic Clinical Training pathway is now well established although the number of fellowships ring-fenced for general practice are small and the scheme is not well known about.

To start to address some of these issues, the NIHR SPCR introduced new initiatives to support raising the profile of the discipline and to encourage talented medical students to consider a career in academic primary care.

PREVIOUS WINNERS

2021 

• Winner(s): Ryan Jayesinghe (Kings College London) and Tabitha Thornton-Swan (University of Oxford)

2022

• Winner: Isabel Leach (University of Sheffield)
• Highly commended: Laura Statham (University of Warwick) and Reeza Khan (King's College London)

2023

• Winner:  Hannah Mudge (University of Southampton)
• Highly commended: Winston Zhu (University of Oxford) and Irtiqa Ahmed (University of Nottingham) 

2024

• Winner: Sam Rolfe (University College London)
• Highly commended: Charles Coombs and Ishveer Sanghera (University College London)

2025

• Winner: Milou Ottolini and Dhanush Ammineni (University of Oxford)
• Highly commended: Poppy Pierce (University College London) and Megan Rafat  (King's College London)