Carolyn Ann Bellue Holly Annual Student Essay Contest

About this Contest

The Carolyn Ann Bellue Holly Annual Student Essay award was established in 2023 through generous financial donations from Dr. James L. Holly to honor the memory of and enduring legacy of his loving wife of 57 years.

Dr. Holly is a Distinguished Alumnus of UT Health San Antonio School of Medicine and a primary care/innovator leader who practiced for over 40 years. Dr. Holly forever transformed primary care through his tireless work, genuine compassion, and truly innovative thinking. By combining the power of electronics, clinic decision support, collaborative teams, effective tracking of and excellence in patient care quality and safety measures, and ongoing auditing, analysis and reporting of provider and practice performance, he built the world-renowned Southeast Texas Medical Associates (SETMA), LLP, an innovative and transformative patient centered medical home and multi-specialty clinic in Beaumont, Texas knowns for its “continuity, creativity and consistency. In his own words:

“A genuine medical home is a product and a process birthed of a shared personal vision, passion and commitment, evident before an organizational commitment to pursue PC-MH, present during a formal healthcare encounter , and operable in all inter-personal encounters every day.” – Dr. James L. “Larry” Holly

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How to Submit your Essay

Submit your essay in PDF format via email to BellueHollyEssay@uthscsa.edu by the deadline with your name followed by the award name (Ex: Jane Doe – Bellue Holly Student Essay Contest).

If you have additional questions about this contest, please contact BellueHollyEssay@uthscsa.edu.

Essay Details

• Review the content of Dr. Holly’s 66,000-page digital archive, and reflect on the career of Dr. Holly and how SETMA changed the course and future of medicine.
• Using Dr. Holly’s pearls of wisdom and reflecting on the patient-centered medical home model of excellence that is SETMA, describe specifically how you will create a new future for primary care. Specifically, consider how you will work “collaboratively,” synergistically, and leverage the generative power of a team. Consider also how you will use the power of electronics, analytics, and informatics principles to energize change to create a new future in healthcare.
• Essay length should be a minimum of 2,000 words and clearly answer the prompt, citing sources from Dr. Holly’s digital archive to support your vision.  

Eligibility Criteria

• UT Health San Antonio Long SOM students at all levels of training are eligible to participate in this contest.
• Essays received will be de-identified at time of review to reduce bias in the selection process which will be overseen by a faculty judge, appointed by the Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
• FOUR finalists will be announced in spring 2026 based upon which essays best respond to the prompt. Finalists will participate in an open discussion forum during Primary Care Week in October 2024 to answer questions related to the essay prompt and elaborate on what they learned from Dr. Holly’s digital archive. Discussion points will be used as criteria in the final selection process of winners.

How to Submit Your Essay

• Submission deadline – December 31
• Submit your essay in PDF format via email to BellueHollyEssay@uthscsa.edu by the deadline with your name followed by the award name (Ex: Jane Doе – Bellue Holly Student Essay Contest).
•  If you have additional questions about this contest, please contact the email address above.