As the Pahlavi monarchy of Iran invested heavily in institutions like universities and hospitals, physicians contested traditional forms of knowledge, inserting European allopathy into the public discourse on curatives. The historiography, in emphasizing the development of institutions perpetuating western scientific knowledge, has not adequately illustrated the dynamic public reaction to medical practitioners. Parents and spouses, in particular, expressed their responsibility to their children and partners as their health, at times, deteriorated under the care of physicians and pharmacists. “Families and Physicians: Rebutting the Experts” evaluates cases of medical malpractice and situates them in the context of evolving family dynamics in modern Iranian society. Parents, in particular, argued that they understood the needs of their children and could better assess the competence of the practitioners as well as the effectiveness of the medication prescribed. The doctor’s office and the pharmacy became vulnerable to public critique as parents challenged the care their children received. Just as the Pahlavi monarchy redefined the role of healthcare providers and parents, the latter argued that they were most capable of assessing the health needs of their children, especially when experts failed their children. I argue that the historiography of the Middle East may further complicate the citizen-practitioner relationship as well as expose the experiences of children through medical malpractice suits. Like historians of Europe and Latin America, who have used the archives to examine children through court, police, and medical records, this presentation highlights individual stories to illustrate the role of children in families and the ways in which parents, as well as spouses, handled these tragedies. "Families and Physicians" ties together several historiographic strains, including medicine, nationalism, and children, to investigate tensions within Iranian society. Through Iranian archival sources, including transcripts and judgments on malpractice cases, as well as newspapers, the presentation assesses the transformation of both medicine and family dynamics, as well as their relationship with each other in public discourse.