Normally this site focuses on the United States' military medical system. However today we are making a special exception. We bring you the story of Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani, a physician in the Iranian military who worked in a prison but stood up to authorities by allegedly refusing to falsify medical documentation concerning abuse. According to this story published in the Wall Street Journal, he died standing up for his beliefs. Here are some select quotes:
At the height of Iran's bloody civil unrest this year, a young doctor named Ramin Pourandarjani defied his superiors. He refused to sign death certificates at a Tehran prison that he said were falsified to cover up murder.
He testified to a parliamentary committee that jailers were torturing and raping protesters, his family says. He told friends and family he feared for his life.
In a series of interviews over three weeks, Dr. Pourandarjani's family spoke in detail for the first time about their son's mysterious death.
Iranian officials first blamed the doctor's death on a car accident, then a heart attack, then suicide and then poisoning, according to family members and government statements.
Often when we read about adverse situations or events in military medicine we are left scratching our head and asking "where were the doctors?". If everything alleged turns out to be true, Pourandarjani will go down in history as a military medicine hero. What if the Iranian leaders had properly addressed the situations Pourandarjani identified? The corrective actions could have had a domino effect of positivity.
