Faculty of Medicine

Hello friends, I am Professor Mustafa Sait Gönen. I have been the dean of Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty for 2 years. I am from Konya, I completed my primary, secondary and high school education in Konya, and my university education in Istanbul University, Edirne Faculty of Medicine and finally in Cerrahpaşa. I graduated in 1985. I served my compulsory service in Yozgat for a year. Later, I specialized in internal diseases at Selçuk University and then I completed a post-specialization on endocrinology and metabolic diseases at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. I worked at Cornell Medical Center in America, thanks to a granted fellowship. Later; I continued my academic pursuits at Selçuk University, İlim University and Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. I have been the president of the association for endocrinology and metabolic diseases for some time now. I work intensively on areas such as diabetes, thyroid, pituitary diseases and obesity diseases. I am still continuing my studies as a faculty member in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. Cerrahapa Faculty of Medicine is one of the two faculties of medicine, formerly known as the Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane, which was established during the reign of Mahmut II in 1827, becoming the first institution providing modern medicinal education . It was founded in 1827 in Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane Tulumbaşı Mansion. Later on, lessons were taught in the Galatasaray High School for a term and then in the building in Haydarpaşa. The Faculty of Medicine, which was moved to the European wing of Istanbul after the university reform in 1933, continued providing internships in Upper and Lower Guraba, Şişli Etfal Hospital, Bakırköy Psychiatric Hospital, and the faculty itself. Since it was very difficult for students to commute such as wide area, currently we have two main campuses, the Cerrahpaşa and Çapa campuses. Students complete their internships at Cerrahpaşa Campus and Çapa Campus. In 1967, the university senate, which thought that this was also not sustainable, took a decision to establish Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine and Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty within the body of Istanbul University. Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine is the faculty which is preferred by the brightest children in our country, and accepts students with the highest score among public universities. Last year, the lowest ranked entrant of our English Department was the 313th in the national exam. In the Turkish Department, the lowest ranked entrant was 1709th in the rankings. Highly successful students choose our faculty. Similarly, at graduation, we see that 5 of the top 10 students in the Medical Specialty Examination (TUS) for the last 3 terms are graduates of Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty. Of course, medicine is a profession that is loved. It is definitely not a profession to be involved with without loving it. It is necessary to consider medicine as a lifestyle rather than a profession and to be prepared for this. My suggestion too our dear students who will make a choice is to do their own research, taking into account the suggestions and advice of their families. Because it is very important to do something with passion, if they are to do it for a lifetime.
We are making an effort to help our students adopt to this lifestyle. While we examine the cell, the liver, human beings, we always have their values in mind. When we think of the faculty in these terms, we can say that it is an important institution considering its large staff, scientific studies and the large number of patients coming from all over Turkey. The faculty with the highest number of studies on cancer in our country is our faculty. Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine functions as the main center in most of the polycentric studies. The Faculty of Medicine is the last resort of many patients from around Turkey. This benefits the students greatly. Students who study here graduate with a lot of experience concerning even the rarest of diseases. This is very important because the study of medicine involves a master-apprentice relationship. Of course, it is now very easy to gain theoretical knowledge, but seeing a large number of various diseases makes all the difference in their education. This will help our students in differentiating between diseases. We assign an advisor to each student starting from the first year at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. This advisor, for the next 6 years, deals with the social problems of this student and the problems he/she encounters at school and reports to our management. During the 6 years that our students will be here, we encourage and direct them to be included in an international scientific article. We are working to include them in almost all clinics. We are one of the Medical Faculties with the largest academic staff in our country. We serve with a total of more than 400 faculty members, including nearly 300 professors, 70-80 associate professors, and 25-30 doctoral lecturers. We can summarize medical education as follows the first three years involves pre-clinical training. The fourth and fifth grades make up the internship periods, and in the last year they become inters. We enable our students to observe patients the first year that they come here. We currently have 22 lecture halls in the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. More than 2000 students can study at these lecture halls at the same time. Students start to go to polyclinics once a week starting from second grade. This enables students to start gaining professional experience early on. Students can obtain the necessary knowledge and experience in this campus. Our students leave the campus to complete a public health internship and perhaps a forensic internship. Apart from these, both pre-clinical training, internship training and intern training are all included in the program. At the same time, this campus is quite lively. They are happy in this campus, because Cerrahpaşa offers you an everlasting heritage and setting in which everyone supports and loves each other.
Cerrahpaşa campus is located on the seventh hill of Istanbul, slightly higher than sea level and is one of the most accessible centres in Istanbul, within the historical peninsula. We can say that we are in the centre where all of the transportation routes such as metro, metrobus and all others intersect. Let me talk about the three characteristics of Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine that stand out. First of all, approximately 3000 students are currently studying in our English and Turkish Faculty of Medicine as a part of our program. Only the language is different in our departments; The subjects and teachers are almost the same in both. Our internships continue alongside the patients. Another prominent point is scientific activities. In terms of scientific activities, Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine is among the faculties where the most scientific studies and articles are produced in our country. Three. The number of patients we have coming from all around Turkey. This allows our students to see a large number of different diseases. In addition, there are many patients coming from abroad to the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. Patients coming from abroad could not come during this pandemic period. Under the initiative of Cerrahpaşa International, we started to work all over the world with the slogan "Cerrahpaşa is Everywhere". Our patients can get medical information from Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine by meeting with any physician they want on digital media outlets such as Zoom. Let me tell something to the dear young people whose goal is to get medically trained. If they choose Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, they will graduate from a school with Erasmus connections with 25 faculties around the world. In addition, the diploma they’ll received from our faculty, which was accredited for the first time for both English and Turkish medical education in 2012 and 2020, will meet these conditions until 2025, means that they are valid all over the world. Last year, 35 students out of the first 200 chose Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. We are looking forward to welcome successful young students who are interested in medicine and scientific studies to the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine.