Videos have tried to attract doctors, lawyers and scientists into Islamic extremism for more than a decade, the BBC has learned.
The tapes were used to try to shame Muslim professionals to get more involved in violent jihad.
One film from 1999 seen by the BBC shows a man claiming to be a third-year medical student in Birmingham.
He is shown claiming: “What we lack here is Muslims who are prepared to suffer and sacrifice.”
Of fellow Muslim medical students he says: “They get their job, they get their surgery – £50,000, £60,000, £70,000 a year. No struggle, no sacrifice.”
The report comes as it was disclosed that eight people arrested in connection with failed car bombings in Glasgow and London all have links with the NHS.
BBC home affairs editor Mark Easton says one al-Qaeda video features doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri – number two to Osama Bin Laden – who left Cairo medical school with a master’s degree in surgery.
And a suicide bomber who killed 22 US soldiers and civilians in Iraq in December 2005 was named as a student from a Saudi medical school.