Chicago gynecologist Nicole Williams landed in Uganda Jan. 20, the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. She was heading to the East African nation on a Fulbright scholarship — a longstanding worldwide change program that connects Individuals to the world and promotes cross-cultural engagement.
Williams obtained arrange on the Kabale College College of Drugs, the place she deliberate to analyze maternal well being outcomes, assist train medical college students on the college and deal with native sufferers. However early into her work, the Trump administration pulled the plug on her funding.
As she waits for the funding freeze to be lifted, Williams is debating whether or not to pay out of pocket to proceed her mission or reduce her journey quick and return to Chicago. She can be witnessing how the Trump administration’s efforts to slash authorities spending are altering the world’s notion of America.
Williams spoke to WBEZ’s Anna Savchenko. Her responses have been evenly edited for brevity and readability.
It’s all the time been my dream to do a Fulbright fellowship. It simply appeared to me the epitome of having the ability to be an envoy for our nation with out truly working for the State Division — to characterize the perfect of what America has to supply.
Fulbright solely lets 1 in 5 individuals in as fellows. So, I believed to myself, ‘Who am I to suppose that I’d be capable to get such a prestigious honor?’ I assume it simply took pals of mine to consider in me, to assist me consider in myself.
[When they award you the scholarship,] they ship you an electronic mail … they don’t even say congratulations within the [subject] line. They only say, ‘Click on to search out out.’ After which I discovered. I sort of screamed slightly bit. After which I referred to as my mother and my pals and stated, ‘Yeah, I assume I gotta go,’ as a result of I didn’t suppose I used to be going to get it.
I arrived within the capital metropolis of Uganda on Jan. 20, 2025. Then I took a five-and-a-half–hour drive right down to Kabale, which is in southwest Uganda. I’m staying at a medical scholar guesthouse that’s simply a few blocks away from the Kabale College College of Drugs.
One in every of my most fulfilling experiences with a affected person up to now was … we had a 64-year-old girl who’d had an irregular Pap take a look at finished at an out of doors clinic, and she or he got here to us for follow-up. However this hospital doesn’t even have a pathology division, to allow them to’t truly take a Pap take a look at and take a look at it.
So, I confirmed my residents find out how to do a easy take a look at referred to as visible inspection underneath acetic acid. All we do is simply take a look on the cervix with easy desk vinegar, and it may inform us whether or not or not we’re suspicious of any sort of abnormality.
So, we did that for the affected person, and we realized that her irregular Pap had progressed, and that it was higher for us to go forward and do a surgical procedure, to be sure that she doesn’t have to fret about that ever once more.
The East African Fulbrighters, we now have our personal little WhatsApp group chat. One in every of my colleagues stated, ‘Hey, I didn’t get my second set of funding. Are you aware something about it?’ None of us knew something about it. Then, lastly, we heard on the information that the funding had been reduce [in February].
I must say I’m slightly embarrassed to be American proper now. I’ve been apologizing to all people. The half that basically hurts essentially the most is that we’re imagined to be the perfect of the perfect that america has to supply to the world, and we’ve been handled as if we don’t matter, as a result of apparently, to this administration, we don’t.
I’ve been to many, many nations, and whereas individuals like Europe, they love America. It’s a visceral and deep love of this nation — my nation, America. It takes years to domesticate that kind of sentiment, that love of America, and you’ll’t go anyplace with out seeing a USAID signal right here in Uganda and most of the locations the place I’ve been.
Now, it’s all gone. Vaccine packages are gone. Nurses the place I work have been furloughed. I noticed a headline in a Ugandan newspaper simply yesterday, saying they’re operating out of HIV meds for his or her sufferers.
The explanation that we’re liked a lot is as a result of we do this sort of work. With out it, we’re simply nothing.
Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ.
