Julian Atim: Working at Nexus of Human Rights and HIV/AIDS

Julian Atim

Several years ago, when many people were fleeing Northern Uganda because of a long, armed conflict, Julian Atim headed straight for that part of her country. The region has nearly twice the HIV/AIDS rates as the rest of Uganda, according to a 2004 report from World Vision. And Atim, who at the time was a medical student, wanted to volunteer in hospitals near the conflict. She hoped to give back to the country that had helped fund her education by improving the health and well-being of her fellow Ugandans.

Now a student at HSPH, Atim continues to strategize about how best to help her country. She will graduate on June 5 with an MPH in International Health.

Atim grew up in a middle-class environment in the capital city of Uganda in a family of 11 people. Eventual financial hardship almost forced her out of high school, but teachers and others gathered enough support to allow the talented student to finish her education.

Having excelled in her high school exams, Atim attended Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Her education was funded by a merit-based scholarship through the country's Ministry of Education.

While at the university, she founded an advocacy group called Students for Equity in Health Care, which draws attention to health rights countrywide. As part of this effort, she organized the university's first AIDS action week with the theme "HIV/AIDS: Are You Playing Your Role." The week raised awareness about ensuring the safety of students in medical training. The group lobbied for and received funding for hepatitis vaccinations for all medical students at Makerere Medical School.

Atim joined the Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA). The group has worked with Physicians for Human Rights to form a network of more than 600 health workers in Uganda involved in HIV/AIDS advocacy.

And, while still a student, she traveled repeatedly to Northern Uganda to volunteer her medical knowledge in rural areas. She brought fellow medical students with her to provide care to people displaced by the violence who were now living in camps. The students helped their patients cope with the ravages of HIV/AIDS, sexual assaults, and unsanitary conditions. The work proved so compelling that Atim accepted a position at a hospital in Northern Uganda after earning her medical degree in 2005.

Atim's work drew the attention of Physicians for Human Rights, which honored her with a Health and Human Rights Award in 2006. The ceremony brought her to Boston, and a tour of HSPH encouraged her to apply to the School.

"Since I was in medical school in Uganda, I felt that there was something more than clinical work," says Atim. "It was frustrating to see somebody come into the hospital where I worked with malaria to be treated, and then come back again in two weeks. I wanted to learn about prevention and health care management."

Atim received a Reynolds Fellowship in Social Entrepreneurship from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation to attend HSPH.

At the School, Atim has become convinced that collaborative efforts are crucial to overcoming global health problems.

"We can't do anything solely. We need to bring together people from different backgrounds to find solutions," she says.

She has focused on international health with an eye toward essential health care delivery in developing countries. She says that meeting a diversity of HSPH students, faculty members, and guest speakers has widened her perspective on the importance of not just treating disease, but also on prevention.

She sympathizes with doctors who leave Uganda in search of better opportunities or who stay but switch fields. "You want to do certain things, simple procedures, but the antibiotics, the medicines you need are not available," she says. "It's a very frustrating thing. You feel you want to do things the way you were trained to do them, but you can't."

Atim is still weighing her options for next year. She hopes to eventually return to Uganda to pass along what she's learned at HSPH, perhaps at a teaching hospital, and to later work in health policy.

"In the short term, I would like to advance in my medical career," Atim says. "I would like to specialize in pediatrics because I feel it is the greatest need."

Education, she says, is, "a lifelong thing, building all the skills you need. This is not the end."

—Amy Roeder. Photo by Suzanne Camarata.