Holly G. Atkinson, MD

Dr. Holly Atkinson is Program Director of Human Rights in the Arnhold Institute for Global Health at Mount Sinai; Co-Director of the Advancing Idealism in Medicine Program in the Department of Medicine; and Assistant Professor of Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York. As part of her role as Program Director of Human Rights, Dr. Atkinson is also Director of the Mount Sinai Human Rights Clinic, where asylum seekers who have suffered torture, trafficking and other egregious human rights violations are medically and psychologically evaluated. She also serves as faculty advisor to the Human Rights and Social Justice Scholars Program and the Physicians for Human Right student chapter at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Atkinson has a broad background in human rights, having served on the board of directors of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) for more than 16 years, including four years as President. She now serves as an expert medical advisor to the organization and is a member of PHR’s asylum network. Today, her research focuses on documenting the linkages between the human rights violations and health outcomes, especially as it applies to the well being of women and girls. She has conducted research in several countries around the world, including most recently Bahrain and Burma.

Dr. Atkinson graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors in Biology from Colgate University. She has an MD from the University of Rochester and an MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the AOA Honor Medical Society, the American Public Health Association, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also a Fellow of the American Medical Women’s Association, where she co-chairs AMWA’s Physicians Against Human Trafficking (PATH) initiative.