Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors | Book Discussion

 

Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors (Author: Sara Farhan) traces the institutionalisation of medicine in Iraq from late Ottoman reforms to the founding of the Medical College of Mosul. It shows how imperial, colonial, and national projects sought to cultivate physicians who could serve both state and society, while those very doctors navigated competing ideological demands. Drawing on diverse and rich sources, the book examines the contradictions of state-driven efforts in which doctors acted simultaneously as agents of reform and as subjects of bureaucratic oversight. In doing so, it illuminates the entanglements of medical pedagogy, professional authority, public health policy, and the broader political transformations that continually redefined medicine in Iraq.

 

Sara Farhan is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Northern British Columbia. A social and cultural historian, her research focuses on medical education, disease and diplomacy, the politics of science and technology, and archival practices.