2015 A Better Australia Scholarship Winner

Editor’s note: This article was reviewed and updated in July 2026 to meet Expert Editor’s latest editorial standards.

Editor’s note (July 2026): The A Better Australia Scholarship program is no longer offered by The Expert Editor. This post is kept as a historical record of Heidi-May’s 2015 win.

The Expert Editor would like to congratulate Heidi-May Mcrenolyds from the University of Sydney for winning the 2015 A Better Australia Scholarship Program.

She was awarded $1000 to help implement change in how Australia deals with mental illness.

Here is her entry.

“It’s all in your head”

As a nursing student with an interest in mental health and policy development, my ideal change in Australia is to eradicate stigma surrounding mental illness and to stop saying “it’s all in your head”. Australia has a world class healthcare system and prides itself on being accepting, understanding and giving people ‘a fair go’; but stigma is a barrier to the provision of mental health care. As a student, I spend time with patients with a variety of health problems. Recently, a patient asked me “can I still be a nurse if I have bipolar?” and I thought “why not? If you can recover from almost any other physical health problem and still be a nurse, why is bipolar different?”. My patient exemplified how societal views can underpin self-limiting attitudes and are a barrier to patient recovery.

I hope to eradicate stigma surrounding mental illness in three ways: provision of holistic nursing care in my own practice; contributing to the evidence base about efficiently integrating physical and mental health care to inform health policy development; and to produce societal change underpinned by policy that advocates for patients and increases public awareness.

Editor’s note (July 2026): The following sections were added in 2026 for context.

Note: If you or someone you know is affected by mental illness, Beyond Blue (beyondblue.org.au) and Lifeline (13 11 14) offer free support in Australia.

Why this entry stood out

The judging panel was struck by the clarity and personal authenticity of Heidi-May’s entry. Rather than presenting a purely abstract argument, she grounded her case in a real clinical encounter — the question posed by a patient living with bipolar disorder — and used that moment to illuminate a much broader systemic problem. This approach demonstrated exactly the kind of thinking the scholarship was designed to reward: the ability to connect individual experience to wider social and policy change.

Her essay also shows a sophisticated understanding of how stigma operates on multiple levels simultaneously. At the individual level, it shapes the way a patient sees her own future (“can I still be a nurse?”). At the institutional level, it influences how care is delivered and how resources are allocated. And at the societal level, it is reinforced by language — the casual dismissal embedded in a phrase like “it’s all in your head” — and by the persistent cultural tendency to treat mental illness as a character flaw rather than a health condition.

Heidi-May’s proposed three-part response to this problem — personal practice, evidence contribution, and policy advocacy — reflects a mature, realistic roadmap. She recognised that lasting change rarely comes from any single intervention, and that a nurse’s influence extends far beyond the bedside.

What the essay does well as a piece of writing

(Section added in 2026 for context.)

Beyond its subject matter, the entry is worth examining as a model of persuasive short-form writing — particularly relevant for scholarship applicants and student writers. Several craft choices make it effective.

Opening with a concrete hook. Heidi-May does not begin with a dictionary definition or a broad statement about Australia’s healthcare system. She opens with the problem in miniature: a phrase (“it’s all in your head”) that doubles as both a cultural attitude and a personal wound. That immediately gives the reader something tangible to react to.

Using a real encounter as evidence. The patient’s question — “can I still be a nurse if I have bipolar?” — does the work of three paragraphs of abstract argument in a single line. It shows rather than tells, making the abstract cost of stigma immediate and human. This is a technique any writer can apply: find one real, specific moment that contains the whole of your argument, and let it speak.

Ending with a structured, actionable vision. The final paragraph avoids the common student essay pitfall of concluding with a vague call for “more awareness”. Instead, Heidi-May names three concrete levers — clinical practice, research, policy — and explains why all three are necessary. This signals to the reader (and the panel) that she has thought past the problem to the solution.

Maintaining a consistent first-person voice. The entry is written from a specific, situated perspective: a nursing student, with lived proximity to the issue. She never oversteps into claims she cannot personally substantiate, and she never retreats into impersonal, bureaucratic language. The voice stays grounded throughout, which makes the argument more credible, not less.

The broader conversation: mental health stigma in Australia

The issue Heidi-May raises is one of genuine national importance. Mental illness is common, affecting a significant proportion of Australians at some point in their lives, yet many people who experience symptoms delay seeking help or avoid it altogether — not because services are unavailable, but because of shame, fear of judgement, or concern about how a diagnosis might affect their career, relationships, or sense of identity. The very hesitation in Heidi-May’s patient — wondering aloud whether a diagnosis disqualifies her from the profession she is training for — is a small but telling illustration of that dynamic.

Language plays a central role in perpetuating stigma. Phrases that trivialise psychological distress (“just snap out of it”, “cheer up”, “it’s all in your head”) send a clear implicit message: that mental suffering is not real in the way physical suffering is, and that the person experiencing it has some degree of control or responsibility they are failing to exercise. These messages, repeated across workplaces, schools, families, and media, accumulate into a cultural norm that makes disclosure feel risky.

Healthcare settings are not immune to this. Patients with mental health diagnoses sometimes report that their physical complaints are taken less seriously, or that their mental health history becomes the default explanation for any presenting symptom. Holistic nursing care — the approach Heidi-May commits to in her essay — directly counters this tendency by treating the whole person rather than sorting their needs into a hierarchy where “physical” always comes first.

A note for future scholarship applicants

(Section added in 2026 for context.)

Although the A Better Australia Scholarship is no longer running, Heidi-May’s entry remains a useful reference for anyone writing a scholarship application or a short persuasive essay on a social issue. The qualities that made this entry successful — specificity, structural clarity, a grounded personal voice, and a concrete vision for change — are transferable to almost any similar brief.

One lesson in particular is worth carrying forward: the best scholarship essays do not try to solve a problem entirely within their word limit. They demonstrate that the writer understands the problem deeply, has a credible stake in addressing it, and has thought carefully about a realistic path forward. Heidi-May’s essay does all three in fewer than 200 words — a reminder that economy of language, in service of a clear argument, tends to impress more than sheer length.

We extend our congratulations once again to Heidi-May, and hope she has gone on to make a difference in her nursing career and beyond.