He was from an upscale patriotic Baghdadian family and studied at a medical school in Istanbul 1913-1918, completing post-graduate studies in general surgery in Germany. Shawkat was the first Iraqi doctor to teach anatomy at the Iraqi Royal College of Medicine of which he became the dean later in the 1940s.[1] He was one of the pioneers in general surgery in Iraq,[2] serving as Director General of Baghdad Hospital in the 1930s.[3] In 1932 he became a founding committee member of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society.[4] He attended King Ghazi after the car accident preceding his death.[5]