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Doctor's orders: know no borders
Nobel-winning group's U.S. president to speak at MED convocation

By David J. Craig

A leader of one of the world's most esteemed humanitarian organizations, Doctors Without Borders, will deliver this year's convocation address for the Boston University School of Medicine. Anamaria Bulatovic, president of the American branch of the organization that received the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, has provided firsthand care and coordinated massive medical relief efforts for refugee populations in Thailand and Tanzania. She is also a physician in the Pediatric Urgent Care Center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

A group of French doctors founded Médecins Sans Frontièrs (known in English-speaking countries as Doctors Without Borders) in 1971, on the premise that basic medical care was a right shared by all, a right that neither begins nor ends at national borders. Unflagging commitment to this ideal, and to speaking out against human rights violations wherever they are encountered, has earned Doctors Without Borders near-universal admiration. Each year, it dispatches approximately 2,000 volunteer doctors, nurses, and other specialists to more than 80 countries. It is an organization that stands not so much apart from as above geopolitical conflict.

"Despite grand debates on world order," James Orbinski, president of the organization's International Council, said in accepting the Nobel Prize, "the act of humanitarianism comes down to one thing: individual human beings reaching out to those others who find themselves in the most difficult circumstances. And they reach out one bandage at a time, one suture at a time, one vaccination at a time."

The University will also present a special citation to Doctors Without Borders at the general Commencement exercises at Nickerson Field. Bulatovic will accept the citation on the organization's behalf. At the annual Senior Brunch on May 4, President Jon Westling called Doctors Without Borders "a group that is of true importance in the world today." The citation, he said, will recognize "the profound humanitarian impact that Médecins Sans Frontièrs has made, is making, and will continue to make."

Bulatovic received her doctorate of medicine from Pennsylvania State Medical College in 1986 and completed her residency and internship in pediatrics at the University of Virginia in 1989. Her association with Doctors Without Borders began three years later, when she spent seven months in Thailand providing pediatric and adult medical care to refugees. In 1994, after completing her master's degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, she accepted a second Doctors Without Borders assignment, to Tanzania. There she helped coordinate efforts to prevent the spread of tuberculosis, malaria, and AIDS among 50,000 Rwandan refugees in an area where access to food supplies and uncontaminated water was severely limited. She became president of the American section of Doctors Without Borders in February 2000.

The School of Medicine convocation will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 20, at the World Trade Center in Boston. For more information, call the school's Office of Student Affairs at 638-5148.

11 May 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations