APRIL 9 - APRIL 10, 2022


Medical Humanities in the Middle East Online

Ala H. Bashir, MBCHB; FRCS(Ed)

Ala H. Bashir

Physician and Artist

Dr. Ala Bashir earned his Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery (MBCHB) from the Iraqi College of Medicine in 1963 while also attending the Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts (1959-1962). In 1970, after serving in the Iraqi Air Force (1963-1966), he obtained his Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh (FRCSEd). In 1971-1972, he trained as a Plastics and Reconstructive Surgeon at the Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, UK and at the Cochin, Foch and Belvédère Hospitals in Paris, France.  

In 1979, Dr. Bashir became the Head of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Al Risafa Surgical Emergency Hospital in Baghdad. He subsequently led his department to become Iraq’s most prominent Center for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Al Wasiti, at which he served as Director from 1980 until 2003. Dr. Bashir also served as Professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Saddam University, now called Al-Nahrain University, in Baghdad (1996-2003), and as a member of the Commission of Higher Medical Education at Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education (1995-2003). 

Dr. Bashir published twenty articles and 5 new surgical techniques in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery and the American Yearbook of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Notable were his invention of a new surgical technique closing extensive wounds by skin traction (1987) and the first successful re-implantation of a severed hand in the Middle East, which he performed at Al Wasiti in 1982. 

In 2003, Dr. Bashir emigrated from Iraq to UK and has since served as Consultant Plastic Surgeon at the Plastic SurgiCentre in Doha, Qatar.  

Dr. Bashir’s art is known for its portrayal of the human condition. He has exhibited widely, including in Baghdad, Belgrade, Bonn, Cairo, Doha, Dublin, London, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris, Rabat, Rome, Tunis, Vienna, and in Baltimore-Maryland, New Haven-Connecticut, and New York City, USA. His art has been acquired in collections such as at the D.H. Lawrence Museum in UK; University of Nottingham, UK; the National Museum of Iraq; the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar; the Jordan Museum; the 6th District Town Hall of Paris; as well as the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore-Maryland and the Corvus Art Center in New Haven-Connecticut, USA.  

Dr. Bashir designed two historically significant monuments in Baghdad: ‘The Union’, a 22-meter, stone statue depicting the love between man and woman; and ‘The Cry’, an 8-meter bronze statue depicting the tragedy of the Amiyria shelter, where in 1991, during the First Gulf War, an airstrike killed 400 women and children.  

 Dr. Bashir earned the Gold Medal in the 1988 Biennale International Exhibition in Baghdad and Second Prize in the 1983 International Poster Exhibition in Paris. In 2003, he earned the State Award for Fine Art, Iraq’s highest art award.