Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Julia says, “from the moment I entered the classroom to the end of my time in Liverpool, networking and studying with likeminded classmates and being mesmerized by the passion of our many professors, I knew I had found my place in Medicine and wanted to pursue more studies along the vein of tropical nursing and humanitarian management.”

Julia has gone on to have an exciting, global career in nursing. After graduating, she returned to Canada for a period where she taught part time at Cambrian College, before she went on to pursue her interest in global health. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Julia was Hospital Nurse Manager with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for a team of 6 Nurse Supervisors and 120 nurses at Mweso General Reference Hospital in North Kivu. Nursing work there involved a host of challenging issues, including programs to manage malnutrition, Cholera and HIV. Continuing to work with MSF, Julia then went on to a position as Head Nurse at POC Hospital in Bentiu, South Sudan - a hospital in a refugee camp with a population that has passed 130,000 people. There, Julia managed an even larger team of post expatriate and national nursing staff in addressing the urgent medical needs of the camp’s residents. Describing her work there, Julia said, “We had a very small operation theatre and a surgical ward and an HIV/TB program, along with internal medicine for the adult population, but everything was pretty much bare basics, as much as it sounds developed. We were working in canvas tents for the longest time and they have just recently started putting up semi-permanent structures.”

Studying at LSTM and living in Liverpool was truly some of my favourite months of my adult and professional life. I woke up every morning excited to go to class, to learn something new, to be inspired by professors and medical professionals that I aspire to be some day. I was challenged on a daily basis and stimulated to continuously learn and grow as an individual and part of a team. The professors exude nothing but passion about the work they do and the topics they research. The best part is that they also wanted to encourage you to follow what you were passionate about and include you in their world of tropical medicine.

I have always yearned for competencies that will bring universal health coverage closer to people in my country. With LSTM’s programme on Global Health, I now have the opportunity to build those competencies and skills with the carefully framed curriculum and guided by a set of amiable tutors on the programme. It’s simply amazing being part of the Global Health programme. Another first by LSTM!