Makerere requires 8 publications for a full professorship. Ivaan Pitua had 31 before he even got his MBChB. Now he is being asked to work for free as an intern.
There is a number that keeps appearing in the conversation around Ivaan Pitua, and it deserves to be said plainly before anything else: 31 peer-reviewed research publications — before graduation from medical school.
Pitua, a Makerere University MBChB graduate, was this week recognised with the Distinguished Research Award at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences graduation, having produced more published research as a medical student than most academics accumulate in an entire career. Prof. Sabrina Kitaka confirmed the award, noting Pitua had 30 peer-reviewed articles at the time of the announcement — a figure that has since been updated to 31.
To put that in context: Makerere University requires 8 publications for a faculty member to be promoted to full professor. Ivaan Pitua hit that bar nearly four times over while still a student.
The recognition of Pitua’s achievement has collided head-on with one of Uganda’s most contested medical sector debates — unpaid internships for medical graduates.
Dr. Robert Kalyesubula, a nephrologist and researcher at Makerere, framed the tension in a single pointed post:
“Meet Ivaan Pitua who scooped the Distinguished Research Award at Makerere Medics with 31 publications before his MBChB grad! How do you expect him to work for free in his internship?”
The question lands with force because of exactly who Pitua is. This is not an abstract debate about intern welfare in general. This is a specific, named, decorated graduate — one whose research output already exceeds the professorship threshold at Uganda’s top university — being expected to provide a year of medical labour without compensation.
The internship requirement is mandatory for medical graduates before they can be licensed to practise independently in Uganda. It is also, for the majority of those graduates, unpaid or inadequately remunerated — a long-standing grievance in Uganda’s health sector that has repeatedly pushed medical interns to strike, petition, and protest.
Who Is Ivaan Pitua?
Beyond the number 31, the details of how a medical student produces that volume of peer-reviewed research while completing one of the most demanding undergraduate programmes in Uganda’s university system remain extraordinary.
MBChB at Makerere is a six-year programme. The curriculum is notoriously rigorous. Students rotate through clinical placements, sit professional examinations, manage coursework across multiple disciplines simultaneously, and navigate the physical and mental demands of hospital-based training. Finding time to conduct, write up, and publish peer-reviewed research — once, let alone 31 times — requires a level of intellectual discipline and output that most graduates never approach.
That Pitua did it consistently enough to be recognised with the Distinguished Research Award at graduation suggests someone who did not just study medicine but contributed to its body of knowledge while doing so.
