Washington, District of Columbia, United States
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Experience & Education
Publications
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Spinning lobotomy: A conventional content analysis of articles by the pioneers of the procedure in the United States
SSM - Mental Health
A summative qualitative content analysis of their articles written between 1944 and 1971 reveals that, despite the lack of endorsement by the U.S. medical establishment, Freeman and Watts gave an overwhelmingly positive depiction of lobotomy along prevailing social, economic, and behavioral norms and needs. These results indicate evidence of both confirmation and social desirability bias by the authors.
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A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran's Age of Cholera
Johns Hopkins University Press
Pandemic cholera reached Iran for the first of many times in 1821, assisted by Britain's territorial expansion and growing commercial pursuits. The revival of Iran's trade arteries after six decades of intermittent civil war, fractured rule, and isolation allowed the epidemic to spread inland and assume national proportions. In A Modern Contagion, Amir A. Afkhami argues that the disease had a profound influence on the development of modern Iran, steering the country's social, economic, and…
Pandemic cholera reached Iran for the first of many times in 1821, assisted by Britain's territorial expansion and growing commercial pursuits. The revival of Iran's trade arteries after six decades of intermittent civil war, fractured rule, and isolation allowed the epidemic to spread inland and assume national proportions. In A Modern Contagion, Amir A. Afkhami argues that the disease had a profound influence on the development of modern Iran, steering the country's social, economic, and political currents.
Drawing on archival documents from Iranian, European, and American sources, Afkhami provides a comprehensive overview of pandemic cholera in Iran from the early nineteenth century to the First World War. Linking the intensity of Iran's cholera outbreaks to the country's particular sociobiological vulnerabilities, he demonstrates that local, national, and international forces in Iran helped structure the region's susceptibility to the epidemics. He also explains how Iran's cholera outbreaks drove the adoption of new paradigms in medicine, helped transform Iranian views of government, and caused enduring institutional changes during a critical period in the country's modern development.
Cholera played an important role in Iran's globalization and diplomacy, influencing everything from military engagements and boundary negotiations to Russia and Britain's imperial rivalry in the Middle East. Remedying an important deficit in the historiography of medicine, public health, and the Middle East, A Modern Contagion increases our understanding of ongoing sociopolitical challenges in Iran and the rest of the Islamic world. -
Addressing the Invisible Affliction: An Assessment of Behavioral Health Services for Newly Resettled Refugees in the United States
Journal of International Migration and Integration
This study examines the current behavioral health service provisions for the U.S. refugee population through individual interviews of refugee resettlement agency staff in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and a nationwide survey of state refugee health coordinators. The results reveal shortfalls in behavioral health screening, clinical resources, and other federally mandated services along with linguistic and cultural obstacles facing refugees with potential behavioral health needs.…
This study examines the current behavioral health service provisions for the U.S. refugee population through individual interviews of refugee resettlement agency staff in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and a nationwide survey of state refugee health coordinators. The results reveal shortfalls in behavioral health screening, clinical resources, and other federally mandated services along with linguistic and cultural obstacles facing refugees with potential behavioral health needs. This study offers actionable policy and procedural recommendations on the federal, state, and local levels to address these shortfalls. This includes increasing funding for healthcare entitlement programs and refugee resettlement agencies, improving screening procedures and treatment protocols, expanding federal and state oversight of mandated behavioral health services, and establishing community-partnered programs to reduce cultural and stigma-related barriers to behavior health care.
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Can Academic Medicine Lead the Way in the Refugee Crisis?
Academic Medicine
The world is currently in the midst of the largest refugee crisis since World War II, with the highest interval of mass displacement in recorded history according to the United Nations. The United States has pledged to maintain its position as one of the world's top resettlement countries in response to this crisis. These new immigrants will arrive with exceptional chronic and acute medical needs, including higher rates of behavioral health disorders. The author describes the health care…
The world is currently in the midst of the largest refugee crisis since World War II, with the highest interval of mass displacement in recorded history according to the United Nations. The United States has pledged to maintain its position as one of the world's top resettlement countries in response to this crisis. These new immigrants will arrive with exceptional chronic and acute medical needs, including higher rates of behavioral health disorders. The author describes the health care challenges experienced by refugees seeking asylum in the United States and outlines the ways in which our health care system is currently deficient in helping refugee patients to overcome these challenges. He argues that the academic medical community can change this dynamic by standardizing and expanding instruction in cross-cultural competence and behavioral health screenings throughout the spectrum of medical education. Ensuring the long-term well-being of refugees in the United States, including meeting their mental health needs, will be the best inoculation against the risks of violent extremism which so many fear. With the absence of national leadership on this issue, academic medicine can and should lead the way.
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Psychiatry and Efforts to Build Community in Iraq
The American Journal of Psychiatry
American- and European-funded stabilization efforts in Iraq during the past decade taught us that healing sectarian rifts depends on “bottom-up” community-level psychosocial interventions.
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How Iran Won the War on Drugs
Foreign Affairs
The narcotics trade is ruining Afghanistan and spreading death and addiction around the world. Kabul needs a new approach to the problem -- and neighboring Iran happens to offer a great model.
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Iraq Encounter: Watching a Faith Healer at Work
New York Times
Laser focus on the patient impresses an American psychiatrist in Iraq
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From Punishment to Harm Reduction: Resecularization of Addiction in Contemporary Iran
Contemporary Iran (Gheissari Ed.)
This chapter analyzes the issue of addiction and substance abuse treatment in Iran before and after the Islamic revolution.
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Compromised Constitutions: The Iranian Experience with the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
This paper examines the social and demographic effects of this outbreak on Iranian society, through a comprehensive investigation of the modes of transmission and propagation, mortality rates, and other distinctive features of the region, and reveals the importance of taking a country's unique sociopolitical settings into account.
Honors & Awards
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Nancy C. A. Roske, M.D. Certificate of Excellence in Medical Student Education
American Psychiatric Association (APA)
The Nancy C.A. Roeske, M.D. Certificate of Excellence in Medical Student Education is awarded by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the APA Council on Medical Education and Lifelong Learning to faculty members who have made outstanding and sustaining contributions to medical student education.
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Distinguished Fellow
American Psychiatric Association
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Psychiatrist of the Year
Washington Psychiatric Society (WPS)
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Distinguished Public Health Award
Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Planning
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Medical Humanitarian Award
Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Health
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Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome Award
American Association for the History of Medicine
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Shryock Medal
American Association for the History of Medicine
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