Dr Helen Kouzmin

Specialist physician

2022 VIC Senior Australian of the Year Nominee

Specialist physician Dr Helen Kouzmin is outstandingly generous, caring and dedicated. She practices according to the highest professional and personal ethics, and combines her love of people with medical brilliance.

Born in Bulgaria in 1942, her family fled Stalin’s regime and endured years of hardship before arriving in Australia in 1950. After her father was tragically killed in a mining accident, Helen took responsibility for her three siblings and grieving mother.

The family moved to Melbourne where Helen studied medicine, graduating as the top female student. After a residency at the Royal Melbourne Hospital she practiced for eight years at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital.

Helen’s exceptional ability to diagnose complex conditions and the time and care she gives her patients has helped save countless lives and clear up misdiagnoses. Despite 50 years of experience and enormous medical knowledge, Helen continuously engages in research and professional development. She still practices in the GP clinic that she opened in the 1980s.