The Long History of Arab American Physicians | Arab Indianapolis

Learn about the contributions of Arab immigrants to health care since the 1920s and their accomplishments.

The video features Dr. Shadia Jalal, esophageal cancer specialist, and Dr. Mohammad Al-Haddad, gastroenterologist, in conversation with author and historian Edward Curtis at the Indiana University School of Dentistry. They discuss the history of Dr. Waheeb Salim Zarick and Dr. William K. Nasser and the significance of Arab Americans’ century-long history of healing other Americans..

The history of medicine in the United States could not be written without including the contributions of Arab Americans. Today’s Arab American physicians often trace their immigrant roots to the period of U.S. history after 1965, when President Johnson signed the Immigration and Naturalization, or Hart-Celler, Act into law. But the history of Arab American medicine goes much further back than that.