Meet our 2022 Prize Winners!

12 July 2022

Find out more about this year’s Prize Winners and learn more about their experience in Health.

Each year, outstanding students and alumni are awarded prizes by the Faculty of Health in recognition of their academic and professional achievements.

Meet some of this year’s Prize Winners, and find out what inspired them to pursue a career in Health.

Megan Moshovelis

Health Dean’s Prize: Sport and Exercise

I took a gap year in 2020 after completing high school with plans to travel and head to southern Africa for a few months, which unfortunately didn’t end up happening. Instead I spent my time trying out new types of fitness to fill the time during lockdown. I turned to exercise as a coping mechanism and realised how much of a positive impact it was having on my physical and mental health. It seemed only right to look into studying and pursuing it as a career, particularly as I’m adamant that sport and exercise can have such a positive effect on people’s lives and wellbeing. I think it can be such a valuable tool not just for physical fitness, but also mental, emotional, and social health.

I’m excited to explore all the options that my degree provides me with a pathway into the industry. Working in Physiotherapy or High Performance Sport are two areas I am definitely interested in, while also considering the possibility of working in research, particularly around sport psychology or women’s sport, as these are growing areas in the field that I am passionate about and are still under-researched. I’m staying open minded and am keen to see what opportunities present themselves for a future career in Sport and Exercise Science.

Ruzica Vidovic

Diabetes NSW & ACT High Achiever Award

The management of diabetes commonly involves medications and medications management, but the ability to provide holistic, patient-centred care that includes consideration and support of the person with diabetes’ mental health, nutrition, physical activity, optimal blood glucose monitoring and targets, and the diabetes annual cycle of care can be overlooked by pharmacists, who are often time poor and lack sufficient opportunity to provide such support. I felt that having a more in-depth understanding of diabetes and how to best provide education and support to people with diabetes would be a great benefit when conducting HMRs, as this setting provides more time and opportunity for such discussions to take place. Diabetes is also a highly prevalent condition in Western Sydney and so there is plenty of opportunity to provide diabetes education and support via HMRs. I am passionate about the quality use of medicines and ensuring that the medicines being used are the most appropriate for the person.

The most rewarding aspect of the course is having access to experienced credentialled diabetes educators from a variety of health care backgrounds and learning about the different aspects of diabetes education from their perspectives. The assessments also forced one to consider how to use lay language in communicating health care information, which is an essential part of the role of a diabetes educator. I also appreciated the opportunity to go on clinical placement. Even though I studied during the COVID lockdowns in Western Sydney, I was still able to have a practical experience of diabetes education by being in a diabetes unit and surrounded by health care professionals dedicated to this field of clinical practice. I am working towards becoming a credentialled diabetes educator. It is early days, but I am glad that I have 4 years in which to complete the requirements.

Julie Ayoub

NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association Prize in Nursing

After working a number of different jobs in the health sector, I was accepted into the Ambulance Service of NSW as a Trainee Ambulance Officer. It was the job of a lifetime, one which I felt like I had been born to do, and I really felt like I had found my calling in life. I continued to work as an Ambulance Officer until I injured my back lifting a patient and was assigned to off-road work, mostly as a Technical Educator in the Ambulance Education Centre. Two years later I was discharged for being permanently unfit for work, which was absolutely devastating! I initially found work as a Workplace Medic and First Aid Trainer, and later as a Clinical Consultant in a Sleep Apnea Centre, but I felt that there was something more for me to do with my life…like I had a calling that wasn’t being fulfilled.

I wanted to study the Bachelor of Nursing because it was a course I had been interested in back in my teenage years. I had started nursing all the way back in 1990 but had never finished the degree. Going back to study at UTS was the continuation of a career I decided to pursue many years ago, although via many long life-altering detours. I do believe that I have changed and developed during my studies at UTS. I think I am less judgemental and much more understanding of why people are the way they are. Many of the things I have learnt in this course I sincerely wish I knew earlier in my life. But we can’t change the past; we can only learn from it. The knowledge and skills I have learnt while studying nursing at UTS I have been able to apply to my personal life, on clinical placement, and also in my current workplace.

I have become very comfortable talking to patients over the years and try to treat patients the way I would treat family if they were ill or in need of help. It definitely takes time getting used to invading someone’s personal space, particularly when they’re vulnerable and in pain. I would like to think I will continue study in a specialised field, but I'm not sure yet. I’m determined to make the most out of my nursing career, whatever direction it will take me.

Sarah Rio

NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association Prize in Midwifery

I studied a Bachelor of Business at UTS thinking it’d open up opportunities for good jobs. I loved the degree, but quickly found I didn’t quite ‘fit’ into the business world. I decided it was time for a change. I knew I loved to help others and especially enjoyed my interactions with people on a daily basis. I started to think that perhaps I could make a more impactful difference elsewhere… just where and how?

It was a chance encounter with a student midwife that led to my light-bulb moment. I attended an antenatal appointment with my sister where she was having an ECV (external cephalic version), which is when an obstetrician tries to turn a breech baby into a head down position. I was instantly drawn to the aura of the student midwife in the room. She provided the sense of calmness and support that my sister so desperately needed. My first thought was “I can do that, people tell me I make them feel calm all the time”. We got to chatting about her pathway into midwifery and as they say, the rest is history.

Having studied at UTS before, I knew first-hand that the level of training would be highly practical and world-class. The learning has been exceptional and I feel privileged to be taught by industry professionals who are also pioneering research. The most rewarding aspects of this course are the continuity of care experiences. This is where you follow a woman throughout her pregnancy journey, are on-call for her birth, and then see her a couple of times once her baby is born. To have the honour as a student to provide such care under the guidance of registered midwives is something I will always cherish.

An educated woman is an informed woman, and an informed woman is then able to truly make decisions for herself by combining the information she receives with what her own wants/needs are. This idea of “woman-centred care” is something that the Bachelor of Midwifery honours and promotes. It also speaks to the core of my own passion for this vocation. My passion is simple – work with women. Being raised in a household of all girls, we grew up to be strong and independent women who could hold their own in the big world. I don’t think I ever realised I was a feminist until I started my midwifery training. I am especially passionate about helping empower women – to educate them, to create positive relationships, and simply be with them on their journeys through pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. It has ignited a passion and obsession in me I never thought I could possess. To witness and support the miracle of new life, and to be part of such an intimate, transformative and for many, once-in-a-lifetime experience, is an absolute honour.

Trent Lyon

ADEA Research and Sanofi Indigenous Scholarship

I graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology before moving into a clinical role in Brisbane. From there I commenced a postgraduate degree in Psychological Science before being encouraged to apply for the Graduate Certificate in Diabetes Education and Management at UTS after I had commenced a role with Diabetes Queensland’s First Nations health team. I had heard great things about the course and was lucky enough to connect with the course coordinator prior to commencement. This provided me an insight to the universities drive and passion for indigenous health which cemented it for me that this was the perfect match.

I have a keen interest in diabetes education and would love to be able to provide culturally appropriate services to our health workers and mob. I’m extremely passionate about Indigenous health which might come as no surprise as my interest in health correlates heavily to my culture. It’s very important to me to close the gap in health through assistance and education by providing care and education, including policy change, adaptation, co-design and change to the social determinants of health.

The course has provided me the ability to provide assistance and mentor fellow indigenous students which is incredibly rewarding while I also continue to learn and question my own bias and beliefs. I aim to finish my degree and become credentialed within the field while continuing my work with the First Nations health team at Diabetes Queensland and Australia.

Sarah-Kathleen Wadwell

ADEA Research, BD Diabetes Care and UTS Friends Scholarship

I worked as a mental health nurse for 17 years before deciding to start my Registered Nurse journey. After graduating I discovered my passion for Aboriginal Health and preventative community based treatments and undertook a role as a practice nurse. I’m currently the lead nurse within the Aboriginal Health Unit at a Central Coast local health district hospital which involves navigation, care co-ordination and liaising for and with Aboriginal people diagnosed with chronic diseases while providing them with the support, education and links they need to stay well in the community.

Having all 4 of my grandparents and both of my parents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I always wanted to know more about what caused it and how to best mange the diagnosis. As I’m heavily involved in chronic disease management and prevention within the Aboriginal community, I thought that it would be wonderful to be able to provide culturally safe and specific clinical diabetes education and management within my own community and one day be able to use my knowledge and reduce the prevalence of diabetes within the overall population of my people.

I hope to become a credentialed diabetes educator and reduce the prevalence of diabetes within my community. I would like to create programs that educate children and parents about the ways to mitigate risks before a diabetes diagnosis and lifestyle factors that positively influence the lives of my mob.

The Faculty of Health also extends its congratulations to the following students and alumni: