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The Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Prize

Dr Ross Ingram was the first Indigenous person from NSW to be accepted into the University of Newcastle’s Medical School and the first Wiradjuri person to become a doctor.

The competition is open to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person who is working, researching or training in a health-related field. Entries should use an example or a story, to present original and positive ideas aimed at promoting health gains and health equity for Australia’s Indigenous peoples.

They need not be written in formal academic style with extensive referencing, but supporting references can be used where appropriate. Essays should be no more than 2000 words long.

The winner will receive a $4,000 cash prize and the winning essay will be published in the MJA.

Please see our website for further details, and to be inspired by previous entries
https://www.mja.com.au/author-centre/awards/dr-ross-ingram-memorial-prize and submit entries via our online submissions system https://www.mja.com.au/submissions

Questions? Email: mja@mja.com.au.

Dr Francis Geronimo
Deputy Editor MJA

Next publication year: 2021

Closing date Friday 1 July 2021

Judging process: A panel, including external experts and MJA Editorial staff, will judge finalist entries, and judges will be blinded to the identities of the authors.

Before entering the competition, please take a moment to read about Dr Ross Ingram.

Ross Ingram (16 Feb 1967– 15 May 2003)

Ross Ingram was an Indigenous doctor who died in 2003, aged 36, of cardiovascular disease. At the time of his sudden death he was working as a general practitioner in the New South Wales rural town of Leeton.

Ross grew up in the Leeton area, where he was educated at the local primary and high schools. In 1984, he was named Young Citizen of the Year for Leeton and in 1985, while Vice-Captain of Leeton High School, he received a Rotary Citizenship Award. In 1987 he was awarded a National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Award for Youth of the Year.

Ross was the first Indigenous person from NSW to be accepted into the University of Newcastle’s Medical School. He enrolled in 1986 and graduated in 1993, the first Wiradjuri person to become a doctor. Life and medicine took him to an internship and residency in Gosford, then general practice on the NSW central coast and in Tasmania, and finally back to practise in Wiradjuri Country (central western NSW). His death is the first among the small community of Indigenous doctors who have been graduating from Australian medical schools since 1984.

A keen practitioner of softball, football and cricket, as well as medicine, Ross was proud of his achievements both as a man and an Indigenous man. He is remembered by a loving family, including his wife, Julie, three children and three stepchildren.

Previous winners of the Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Prize

competition details