Department of Health Management

Hello, dear students. My name is Kerem Şenel, I am a finance professor. I am the Head of the Department of Healthcare Management of Istanbul University - Cerrahpaşa. The Healthcare Management Department is basically a business department. But it includes much more than what a business department includes. Because we train our students to work in the health sector. Our department consists of two main sections. These are hospital management and health economics. However, of course, the only aim of our department is not to train personnel for the health sector. We also have students who graduated from our department and pursued an academic career. Although it is a business department, it is actually much more than just a business department. Because we are training employees which will specifically work in the healthcare sector. The courses offered in the department are basically business courses. But we don’t only provide business courses such as finance, accounting, marketing, human resources, management and organization. In addition to all business courses, we include courses on health, such as Epidemiology (public health), which has become important recently especially with the Covid pandemic, health terminology and other health-related courses in our curriculum. To summarize, these are our courses. We provide our students with internships in the last year and in the second semester of the fourth year. The institutions they apply for an internship are generally state hospitals, university hospitals and private hospitals. Here, our students choose what they like. They usually find the opportunity to do an internship at their preferred institution. There can also be a rotation in internships. In this way, they also have the opportunity learn about different departments. Again, they have the opportunity to complete their internships in a single department. In our department, we host professionals from the industry at various meetings from time to time. We encourage our students to attend these meetings. Therefore, before our students start working, they also have the chance to learn about the industry experiences of professionals and to plan for the future. Students can work in different departments in private and state hospitals after graduating. However, we do not only train our students to work in the health sector. After graduating from our department, we have many students who prefer to pursue an academic career and move in this direction. When we take a look at the curriculum, there are many different courses that are offered. I don’t believe that our students faced any difficulties throughout these phases. But when they do, we try to help them out, especially our research assistants. If necessary, faculty members also support our students by providing additional lectures. Now, we have started to use distance learning technologies. With the final decision of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK), some of our courses will be provided in the form of distance learning. We will continue to use this technology for the benefit of our students. My most important advice to candidates who will choose our department is this. While planning for the future, they should not forget that they will start from the lower levels, especially at the beginning, regardless of the department they graduate from. Of course, they will take part in management jobs, but unfortunately, it is not possible to become a master without being an apprentice first. Therefore, they will not have a hard time finding a job. It is a much more advantageous department especially compared to business departments. Because we specifically train staff for a certain field, they can easily find a job in it. However, we recommend working towards a future step by step, without raising their expectations too much. Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa is a very special school, because we have Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. Since it is a university built on the theme of health, many disciplines related to health are within the body of Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa. Istanbul is a huge city and has many advantages. The experience of living in Istanbul would be rather quite different from other cities. Being a university student is also a period in a person’s life which they only get to experience once. Therefore I believe that spending such a period in Istanbul will be an unforgettable experience for many of our students. I wish success to all our students who will choose Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Healthcare Management. We look forward to welcoming you all.