Rebel Doctor: From Baghdad to the Australian Bush

‘We had no idea how my brother had been executed. Not until later when we saw the thick blue line scoured into his neck.’

Jets screaming low over the roof of his home and deadly missiles streaking into Baghdad were some of Issam Muteir’s earliest memories.

After tragedy took his father and his sister far too soon, Issam resolved to lift himself out of the slums of Baghdad to become a doctor.

At just twenty-seven years of age, he saved one of Baghdad’s most prestigious university hospitals from destruction.

And in the aftermath of his brother’s execution, Issam made the wrenching decision to leave his family and Iraq, and emigrated to Australia.

Rebel Doctor is the story of a young man rising up against the poverty, violence, and corruption of Baghdad to realise a dream: to heal, instead of harm.