Hilda Winifred Mears Award

APPLICATIONS FOR 2013 ARE NOW OPEN. 

Hilda Winifred Mears was a former member of AfPP, who held a significant number of perioperative posts both within the UK and abroad.  Hilda died in 2008 and left a legacy to AfPP which will be used to fund the Hilda Winifred Mears Award.

The purpose of this award is to assist AfPP members to share their knowledge and skills with other volunteer organisations who facilitate direct patient care to patients overseas in areas where access to free quality healthcare is not available. 

The award will be given to two perioperative practitioners per year, each receiving £1,000 to assist them in undertaking their volunteer role.  In addition, the organisation/s offering placements to the award winners, will each receive  AfPP membership for one year together with £100 worth of AfPP publications of their choice. 

The award winners will be expected to undertake their placement within 18 months of the award being granted and funds will be released once a letter confirming their placement has been received.

The winners of the Hilda Winifred Mears Award 2012 are:

• Yasmin Sesay, ODP, Anaesthetics, Addenbrooks Hospital
• Irena Mazur, ODP student, Addenbrooks Hospital 

who will be working for the Mercy Ships and Operation Smile, respectively.

Mercy Ships aims to bring hope and healing to the poorest people in the world by providing free surgical and medical care to people in disadvantaged circumstances and working with local communitities to improve healthcare.

Mercy Ships need volunteers to enable them to achieve their vision, Yasim will volunteer her time so that the knowledge and skills she has gained can be used to help make a difference.

Operation Smile is a non-profit children's charity which aims to operate on children and young adults from undeveloped countries born with facial deformaties, mainly cleft and lip repair. The charity has provided over 160,000 children with life changing surgery across 60 countries.

Irena will help the project by being a paper medical records (PMR)/electronic medical records (EMR) volunteer and will contribute to safe surgery by taking responsibility of patient records and all aspects of communications between professionals.

Click here to read about 2011 winner Katie Lai Choy Budden’s experience

Award details