The Islamic Revolution of Iran and migration of physicians to the United States.

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, the trend of migration of physicians from the country continued. The total number of Iranian physicians migrated to the United States (US) increased from 1625 before revolution in 1974, to 5045 in 2010, thirty years post-revolution. The percentage of medical graduates migrating to the US, in the same period dropped from 15% to 5%. The reasons for this drop were restrictions imposed, along with creation of good postgraduate residency and fellowship programs in Iran. Following the revolution, the number of medical schools increased from 13 to 48. Despite all the restrictions and impediments for post-revolution medical graduates, over 500 medical graduates from newly established medical schools found their ways into the healthcare system of the US.     In spite of all hardships of eight years of imposed war, and 30 years of the US sanctions, Iran has been able to maintain good progress in its healthcare, education, and research in medicine and other branches of science and technology.