2021 Wild Onions Cover Art created by Allison Chang, MSIII titled Wondering.
The 2021 editorial team presents Wild Onions “Vision” with the distinct honor of providing a platform for our community to express the shared challenges and triumphs emblematic of an extraordinary year. Our contributors truly represent how our collective vision has changed as our world has changed. This issue marks the artistic interpretation of a year of reckoning. Together we experienced the global pandemic in our world-class healthcare system and our everyday lives. Contributions highlight a collection of work that mirrors our necessity to confront inequality, civil unrest, discrimination, disease, and sorrow. Likewise, creative expression in our pages strikes a balance of growing toward acceptance, recognizing beauty, and cultivating hope for our future.
The photography, art, and creative writing published in this issue enable us to expand and deepen our appreciation of vision lost and vision gained.
The beauty of Wild Onions is its capacity to create a vibrant, creative, and expressive community year after year. The Department of Humanities at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine publishes Wild Onions annually. This edition features work by individuals affiliated with Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, including patients, students, faculty, physicians, residents, nurses, staff, volunteers, and family and community members. Wild Onions encourages creative writing and artistic work that seeks to describe and understand the experiences of health, illness, and treatment, especially caregiving and receiving care.
Selection Process:
Each year, we are fortunate to receive hundreds of high-quality submissions of original creative writing, photography, and artwork. All entries are reviewed by medical student editors, and a subset is selected for inclusion in the publication. Particularly stellar pieces are identified and sent on to the corresponding art, creative writing, photography, and theme judges for review and selection.
This year we are offering awards—one each in creative writing, photography, and art—for the following categories:
- Students and Residents
- Healthcare Providers and Faculty
- Patients
- Community, Family Members, and Staff
Additionally, we are awarding three prizes, one for each genre, recognizing work that best exemplifies the theme, “Vision.”