Before her professional career began, Olusheun Olupitan (J.D. ‘26) started work in global healthcare during a summer assignment as an undergraduate student nurse in Bhopal, India. During this month-long trip, she worked with victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, a chemical accident at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant.
“I completed physical health assessments of disabled children and worked with legal scholars at the University of Bhopal to create a digital scholarly archive of the cases surrounding the disaster,” Olupitan said.
At the time, Olupitan was a nursing student pursuing a double major in communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She followed her parents' footsteps, who are both nurses that immigrated from Nigeria to the United States when Olupitan was seven years old. Growing up, Olupitan wanted to be an attorney, but she always felt guided by her parents to pursue a career in the medical field.
“Being from Nigeria with parents in the medical field, I have always been passionate about healthcare as it pertains to the world,” she said.
As Olupitan treated injured victims of what is known as the worst industrial disaster in history, she was able to witness how the medical and legal field intertwined, rekindling her childhood interest in the law.
Now as a student at Georgia State University College of Law, Olupitan is the 2023 recipient of the Health Law Scholarship, which honors an incoming law student who demonstrates experience and promise in health law.
Olusheun Olupitan (J.D. '26)
As a licensed nurse for the past ten years, Olupitan has worked across five different states. "I started travel nursing, and I noticed the same challenges and issues consistent at pretty much every hospital," she explained, citing affordability and red tape as barriers to patient care. “Access to healthcare and its cost posed significant challenges, and patients frequently allowed their conditions to worsen due to delayed care caused by either limited access or delayed insurance approval,” she said.
Her final nudge to apply to law school was the COVID-19 pandemic and her exposure to the legal challenges that physicians, nurses, and patients were all facing globally.
As emerging information shifted frequently in early 2020, changes to liability protections, hospital triage protocols and the rationing of medical equipment gave rise to broader questions about the rights and responsibilities of care providers that were difficult to answer without a legal framework.
During an eight-month temporary nursing position in 2019 in Atlanta, Olupitan saw an advertisement for Georgia State University College of Law's No. 1 health law program and she decided to attend an informational session. "It was ranked No. 1 in health law, so Georgia State Law was clearly where I needed to be,” she said.
After committing to Georgia State Law and applying for scholarship assistance, Olupitan was selected by the Center for Law, Health & Society faculty as the 2023 recipient of the Health Law Scholarship for her work experience and desire to pursue health law.
"I'm so honored to be a recipient. It's really motivated me and allowed me the time to become involved with all that Georgia State Law has to offer."
One semester into law school, Olupitan has plugged into several student organizations like the Student Health Law Association and Wellness in the Law. She even sits on the board of the newly formed International Law Society, where she hopes to connect her interest in global health with her growing legal knowledge.
In her second and third year in law school, Olupitan plans to get involved in the HeLP Clinic and other experiential learning opportunities that involve interprofessional work.
Olupitan doesn't know exactly where her health law career will take her after law school but she hopes to access opportunities that align with her passion in healthcare, whether it's advocating for hospitals, physicians, nurses or patients.
About the Health Law Scholarship
The Health Law Scholarship was created and funded by Distinguished University Professor and professor of law Leslie Wolf, and supported by the health law advisory board members, faculty and alumni. The scholarship award for an incoming law student is a distinct honor in recognition of experience and potential. The scholarship helps fund the student’s first year of tuition and graduate research assistant positions for the student’s second and third years of law school. This provides the scholarship recipient with the opportunity to work alongside health law faculty members, doing research in their area of interest or work with the Center for Law, Health & Society on various initiatives.