Younis Abdul-Hadi Al-Khairulla was a consultant physician in Baghdad, Iraq. He was born in Rifa’i, Iraq, the son of Abdul-Hadi Al-Khairulla, a landlord, and Jasmia Mohamed Al-Khairulla, a housewife. He attended the Central Secondary School in Baghdad and then studied medicine at Baghdad University. He qualified in 1961.

He was a house surgeon at the Al-Rashid Military Hospital (and an army officer in the reserve forces) from 1961 to 1962, and then a house physician and senior house officer in medicine at the Medical City, Baghdad.

In 1967, he went to the UK on a scholarship from the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. He was a senior house officer at Highlands Hospital, London and then at the Middlesex Hospital. From 1970 to 1974 he was a registrar at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage. He gained his MRCP in 1974.

He then returned to Baghdad, where he was a consultant physician at the Cardiovascular Hospital. From 1979 to 1981 he was a senior lecturer at the Baghdad Medical School and a consultant to the Medical City. From 1981 to 1983 he was chairman of the medical department at the Cardiovascular Hospital. He then became a consultant at the Al-Khyal and Al-Aloosi hospitals, Baghdad.

He was the Iraqi representative on an Arab and Gulf states anti-smoking project from 1978 to 1982.

Outside medicine he enjoyed reading historical books, horse riding, hunting and gardening.

In 1965, he married Nisreen Mustafa Abdul-Kadir, a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician. They had a son and three daughters.

RCP editor