Professional Profile

Dr Yahya Atiya graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2004, having attained admission to the Golden Key International Honours Society three years previously. He went on to complete his internship at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto (lovingly known to its staff as “Bara”), a facility famous for its outstanding training of doctors from around the world. In 2006, feeling an urge to make his community service of true benefit to poor South Africans, Dr Atiya elected to go to the small rural town on Standerton, in Mpumalanga, which had a single hospital manned almost exclusively by community service doctors. He spent a further year there, serving the needs of the community.

Following this, he returned to Johannesburg to pursue a career in Ophthalmology. Fate, however, had other plans, and he found himself as a medical officer in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, at what was fast becoming home, Bara. He quickly came to love the elegant and challenging discipline, and decided to pursue a career in ENT instead. He successfully completed the final exam of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa in 2013, and attained his Master of Medicine in Otorhinolaryngology, with distinction, in 2014. He went on to work exclusively in State employ for a further two years after qualifying.

He is currently employed at Bara, and is an active member of the University of the Witwatersrand Department of Otorhinolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery. He has a passion for teaching, training medical students and registrars, and supervises Masters students as well. He has several publications to his name, with more pending. Dr Atiya is also an integral member of the Baragwanath Cochlear Implant team, the only fully State-funded unit of its kind in South Africa. Dr Atiya has attended a number of training courses nationally, furthering his surgical skills, equipping him to better serve his patients.