From Displacement to Service: A Pharmacist's Reflections on Medication Education in Rural Northern Iraq.

Global displacement disrupts continuity of care and access to essential medicines, creating medication-related challenges in fragile health systems. In October 2024, I returned to Northern Iraq to provide medication education sessions across seven rural villages serving internally displaced Assyrian communities and individuals with limited access to consistent pharmacy services. This commentary reflects on that experience and considers what it revealed about medication use in displacement-affected communities and the preparation of future pharmacists. The outreach demonstrated the importance of cultural humility, trust-building, and adapting medication education to the realities of fragmented health systems and limited resources. It also reinforced the need to approach short-term humanitarian outreach with clear ethical boundaries and realistic expectations. These experiences suggest opportunities for pharmacy education to incorporate displacement-related case discussions, adaptive communication strategies, systems thinking, and structured reflection into existing curricula. As global displacement continues to affect healthcare delivery, pharmacy programs have an opportunity to prepare graduates to provide safe, culturally responsive medication education in resource-limited settings while recognizing the broader social and structural factors that influence medication use.