Born in Bagdahd under dictator Saddam Hussein, Dr Sanar Al-Shaklee didn't really have a choice in career.

"In my country, when you finish high school if your grade is very, very high, automatically you are going to medical fields, either doctor, dentist or pharmacist," she said.

Between the autocratic state and her parents, who were also pretty keen on the idea - "my dad made me", she said - medicine it was.

A good thing too. Since graduation she's used her state-funded medical education to travel the world. Since 2009 she's moved from Oman to Manchester England then Oakville in the Canadian province of Ontario. In 2011 she got a call from recruiters for the Bundaberg hospital, with the logic being you'll never know if you never go. Finally she moved to Longreach in 2016, and Glen Innes last year.

"I am a person who doesn't like to be stuck in one thing I get bored very easy," she joke.

"I love to be in the emergency in the morning, deliver a baby in the afternoon, be in theater, and then sitting here talking to (people) as a GP."

She said Glen Innes was the only place she could get a position with obstetrics, emergency where she was also a GP.

Dr Al-Shaklee left Iraq in 2000, just a few years before the US, Australia and the UK invaded her home country, killing hundreds of thousands. Her parents still live in the country.

Her daughter is studying law in Brisbane.