Blogs from Iraq, Middle East

Karl May once wrote adventure novel called Durchs Wilde Kurdistaneven though he had never been there before. We went to the center of that area in nowadays Iraq, straight to the mountains. Is Iraqi Kurdistan really wild? Let´s see. I like seeing places where there is almost impossible to meet tourists. Because of that you are able to get to know locals better - too see who they truly are. Also, you will have a unique travelling experience. Nowadays, everybody can travel everywhere. Massive tourism is killing "spirit "of countries that is often hard to see. Luckily, there are still places that you can discover or re-discover. Mountain range Zagros can be considered to be one of these places. These mountains take big part of today's Iraq and Iran. And we stood right ... read more

So, as is inevitable, I got back to the daily grind and didn't finish up the journal. But I am doing so now. It will be less fresh but I'm committed to seeing it through. Wednesday was our last day. And it started with operating on Ali, our host. He had a tibia fracture 8 months ago after he was hit by a motorcycle and it was fixed in Lebanon because that was the nearest country that had the materials to fix it in a modern fashion. He was having difficulty moving his ankle properly and after examining him I realized that one of the screws that holds the internal rod inside his tibia had impaled and pinned one of his tendons to his bone. So we decided to remove this screw and check out the ... read more

Ugh. Every night I’ve been waking up at 3am with severe trouble falling back asleep. I had plans to go to the gym but I just have to sleep more. Ali picks me up at 8:30am after I down incredible amounts of instant coffee and we pick Scot Hoffinger up from the medical school where he is giving a lecture. There are large hanging signs in the building featuring the graduating medical students in different movie or TV scenes (Soprano’s, Suicide Squad, etc). It’s awesome! Great to see the students having fun. Iraqi medical training is a combined program of medical and undergraduate education for 6 years – much like Australia and European programs. I am excited to give my talk the next day. As I have been informed, there is only one female Orthopaedic surgeon ... read more

I’m writing this while sort of listening during the conference and scratching the 7 bug bites on my legs (who knew, mosquitoes in Iraq). So pretty similar to what I would be doing during a conference in the States. The conference resembles most any orthopaedic conference. I am the only woman. There are some women vendors working the booths outside, all in hijabs. Rumor has it there is a female plastic surgeon from Germany who will be speaking but I haven’t seen her yet. However, everyone is very welcoming and I feel no weirdness or strangeness as a woman. The other surgeons are warm and we make introductions and discuss our practices. We have expert speakers and case presentations. It is all in English and there is a vendor hall with freebies and treats for the ... read more

The Swahili City states went through their collective apex from 600-1450 AD because of the Indian Ocean Trade Networks. The majority of these city states went under the control of the Sultan empire. After this all were later conquered by the Portuguese empire where their trade economies all remained relevant but their roles were diminished in some capacities. While the Portuguese never gained full control of the cities, their dominion was enough to weaken the independent cities' trading power, and after the Portuguese threat had been removed, the city-states never fully regained their dominance or significance in trade. Today the cities mentioned in this blog have vastly different economies from one another, however, areas along the East African coast are still very involved in international trade, some of which occurs on the same trade routes used ... read more