Congratulations to former Head Girl and Medic, Devon Ward (2018), who has received two essay competitions awards from the Royal College of Psychiatrists this academic year.

Firstly, she was Runner up in the Faculty of Eating Disorders Essay Prize 2021 for her essay, What changes would you like to make to the field of Eating Disorders to help patients and carers better? and secondly, Joint Runner-Up of the 2022 Faculty of Forensic Psychiatry Essay Prize 2022 for her essay entitled, The Over-Representation of ADHD in the Prison Population. 

Devon was invited to present her second essay at the Faculty of Forensic Psychiatry Annual Conference in March. This was a brilliant experience for Devon which allowed her to practice presenting at a large conference, work on writing an abstract and allowing her to further deepen her understanding of ADHD and forensic psychiatry. Devon is now working to pursue this topic further and potentially get this systematic review published in the future.

Devon commented on her success: “The ADHD essay in particular was very interesting to research and was an association I hadn't really been aware of until I started researching the association between neurodevelopmental disorders and the legal system. I'm looking forward to gaining more writing experience in the future, and I am aiming to continue to write for essay competitions this year, specifically in psychiatry!”

Devon is a Fourth Year Medical Student intercalating in Psychology at Cardiff University and has a keen interest in Psychiatry. This year she is studying Psychology at the same university to improve her understanding of psychological medicine and mental health. Not one to sit still, around her studies Devon is a Mentor for those wishing to study Medicine and she is a writer for Geeky Medics. Devon is also a university ambassador for the Unofficial Guide to Medicine (UGTM), a text book series working on peer-led publishing model written by students and junior doctors.