Christine Iverson Bennett

While still attending medical school at the University of Michigan, Iverson worked as a nurse simultaneously to raise money for her education at various medical facilities in Ann Arbor.[3] She excelled in pathology and was sworn into Phi Beta Kappa.[3] Upon graduation, Iverson worked at the Michigan Asylum for the Insane as both an attendant and medical intern.[7] She received a $16.00 monthly salary and oversaw most laboratory work with the help of her future successor, Dr. Maud M Rees.[7] After two years, Iverson applied for missionary work through the Arabian Mission, resulting in her departure from the asylum on September 1, 1909.[7]

After her marriage to Arthur King Bennett in 1911, Iverson and her husband went to Busrah, Arabia to conduct missionary work at the Lansing Memorial Hospital.[3] While at Lansing, Iverson focused primarily on the medical treatment of women, however, she did not hesitate to collaborate with her husband on difficult cases. Despite primarily treating adult female patients, she also dedicated some of her time towards conducting bacteriological work. With her husband she took on collective tasks including the vaccination of all willing individuals against the bubonic plague and the creation of a community for leper patients, consisting of huts that were erected around the hospital for patients to live in as they received treatment.[3] The various aspects of Lansing Memorial Hospital, combined with the success of both doctors, resulted in the hospital becoming self-sufficient while simultaneously being the only hospital within a 300-mile radius.[3] Due to the isolated nature of the hospital Iverson would often use her afternoons to conduct home visits but stopped doing so at the beginning of World War I.

In November 1914, Turkey began its engagement in World War I.[3] As Turkish involvement in the war began, Iverson and her husband treated wounded soldiers at the Lansing Memorial Hospital under supervision of the Turkish Red Crescent.[3] Due to the influx of patients, only serious cases received treatment at the hospital, all other patients were sent to various churches and school buildings among the missions. On 21, 1914, the British arrived in Busrah.[3] Iverson and her husband, again, provided care for the wounded soldiers. As the war progressed, the hospital maintained elevated numbers of patients to the point where British forces supplied additional hospital staff and doctors and Iverson worked under the auspices of the Red Cross and the British treating war-related injuries until 1916.