"If you get a doctor and you need to be examined," he said, "and there's an AK-47 under the table, things are very bad."
Doctors don't quit, right? But they are quitting -- getting out of Iraq altogether -- in droves now.
In the past year, about 10 percent of Baghdad's total force of 32,000 registered doctors - Sunnis, Shiites and Christians - have left or been driven from work, according to the Iraqi Medical Association, which licenses practitioners. The exodus has accelerated in recent months, said Akif Khalil al-Alousi, a pathologist at Kindi Teaching Hospital and a senior member of the association. A vast majority of those fleeing, he said, are the most senior doctors.
"It represents a very good chunk of the doctors," Dr. Alousi said. "These are the crème of the crème. They are the people who make the doctors, heads of departments." More here...
And "US 'losing its grip'..." here...
