The Ignaz Semmelweis Award: Project yourself into the future (circa 2050 or so) and that you are in a discussion about current health issues or science in general, and the subject of the "Great Pandemic of 2020" comes up. As part of your discussion you inevitably resort to criticism of how various institutions mishandled the crisis: "How could they have not seen...?!; How could they be so dumb...? Now, take a step back in time to circa 1847 when a Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweis, attempted to persuade the medical community to pay better attention to a sterile hospital environment. Specifically, he demonstrated that the mortality rates for mothers delivering babies in the doctors' section of the hospital was three times that of the midwives' section, and that the mortality rates could be greatly reduced by handwashing (with chlorinated lime solution, back in his day). Before you exclaim duh?! you may be shocked to find out he was mocked and shunned by the medical community for these claims, which contributed to his professional and personal demise. Later, of course, he was vindicated by Louis Pasteur among other notable scientists, who are now staples of our science and health education. The question I provoke you to consider (hopefully with an ounce of humility) is what current advice or guidance being offered to us by doctors, nurses, and the medical community at large is being ignored, shunned, or otherwise 'mocked', that may eventually be looked at as obvious in hindsight? Second, if you could design such an award, what would it resemble?

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