Melissa Sweet

Melissa Sweet is an Australian journalist and nonfiction writer. Formerly employed by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin magazine, and Australian Associated Press, she specializes in writing about human health and medicine.[1]

For the American illustrator, see Melissa Sweet (illustrator).

Early life and career

Sweet grew up in central Queensland. She enrolled in the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT, now Curtin University of Technology) in Perth and earned a bachelor's degree with in journalism and agriculture. Sweet was awarded the WAIT Academic Staff Association Medal as top graduating student in 1984.

Starting in 1987, Sweet was a medical writer for the Australian Associated Press for six years. Then she became the senior account manager in healthcare for Hill and Knowlton, a public relations firm, from 1993 to 1994. In 1994, she returned to journalism, working as a medical writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and a columnist for Good Weekend magazine until 1998. Then The Bulletin magazine hired her as a columnist and feature writer until 2003.[2]

In 2002, Sweet joined the advisory committee to the Australian Law Reform Commission and Australian Health Ethics Committee joint inquiry into the protection of human genetic information.

She has been a freelance journalist, with a regular column in the Adelaide Independent Weekly until 2005, and adjunct senior lecturer positions at the University of Sydney and University of Notre Dame.

Sweet formerly ran Croakey,[3] a social journalism in health initiative,[4] and contributes to Australian Rural Doctor, Australian Doctor, Australian Worker, the British Medical Journal, The Medical Journal of Australia, Australian Prescriber, Australian Nursing Journal, and other professional publications.

Sweet co-founded YouComm News, an Australian open-source community journalism project, in 2010.[5]

Awards

The National Press Club awarded her the John Douglas Pringle Award in 2003. This included a travelling fellowship to the United Kingdom to research quality and safety in their healthcare service. In 2008, Sweet was awarded the Obesity Society Media Award.[6]

On completion of her PhD, Sweet was awarded the Parker Medal for most outstanding thesis for 2017 at Canberra University.[7]

Bibliography
  • Smart health choices: how to make informed health decisions with Judy Irwig and Les Irwig, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1999
  • Inside madness: How one woman's passionate drive to reform the mental health system ended in tragedy, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney, 2006
  • Improving population health: the uses of systematic reviews (with Ray Moynihan), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, 2007
  • The big fat conspiracy, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007
  • Ten Questions You Must Ask Your Doctor (with Ray Moynihan), Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2008
  • — (16 February 2010). "Intensive glare". Opinion. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  • — (Autumn 2010). "In the apple orchard with Win and Petal". Memoir. Griffith Review. 27: 117–121.

References
  1. "Melissa Sweet". sweetcommunication.com.au. Retrieved 27 March 2017.
  2. "Cancer Prevention, Facts & Support - Cancer Council NSW". Cancercouncil.com.au. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  3. "About Croakey – Croakey". 29 September 2010. Archived from the original on 29 September 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
  4. "Croakey.org".
  5. "Business news for your community". Youcommnews.com. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  6. Archived 1 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  7. "2017 Annual Report, University of Canberra, News and Media Research Centre p22" (PDF).


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