AMA Awards 2006 the Ross Ingram Memorial Essay Award

The $5000 prize is donated by the Australasian Medical Publishing Company, publisher of The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA).

The essay competition is open to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are undertaking work, study or research in Indigenous Health.

The competition was named in memory of Dr Ross Ingram, a young Wiradjuri GP who worked in Leeton NSW until his premature death from heart disease in 2003.

Ross Ingram typified the plight of so many Indigenous Australians - while seeking to improve the health of his people he fell victim to the very forces he was working against.

This year's winner, Dennis McDermott, was born to a mother of Sydney's Gadigal-Eora people and an Irish-Scottish father.

After growing up in in a largely white society in Tamworth, NSW, Dennis turned inward and mapped a cultural journey to his roots through the history of his mother's people.

The Koori psychologist and poet now works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous health at the University of NSW in Sydney.

Dennis's winning essay, Unknown family at the taxi stand draws poignantly on stories from his own family to illustrate some of the problems Australia has in caring for Indigenous peoples' mental health.

The AMA and the MJA congratulate Dennis for winning this important award.