Born on the Gold Coast and raised in Brisbane, Menzies trainee Zyana Gall hopes to one day work in emergency medicine and get her PhD.
Zyana is a proud Palawa Aboriginal woman and her country is Lutruwita/Tasmania.
She began her traineeship with Menzies in February 2020 with the administration team in the Brisbane office and is currently completing a Certificate IV in Business.
Zyana says it was Menzies’ focus on improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the work in global and tropical health research into life-threatening diseases that interested her in joining Menzies.
No day is the same in the office for Zyana as she says, “one day I will be studying, the next I’ll be doing project work like data entry and the next I could be helping with staff enquiries.”
“The opportunities, the fact that my days aren’t predictable and the people I work with are what I enjoy most about being at Menzies,” she said.
Zyana has also taken part in facilitating online yarning circles with other young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for the What Matters study. Becoming a facilitator for the What Matters study, who are working on developing a tool to measure wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, was one of Zyana’s most challenging experiences so far at Menzies.
“Public speaking is one of the most terrifying things that I could ever think of, but I was able to beat my anxiety with the support of my co-workers,” Zyana said.
“I enjoyed learning about other people’s perspectives and being able to get a little peek into research work.”
After completing her Certificate IV, Zyana would like to do a paramedics degree, then work both as a paramedic and in research, and ultimately get a PhD.
Outside of Menzies Zyana loves scrap journaling, meditating, cooking, and collecting random things while exploring.