Vocational School of Health Services

Hello, I am Professor Mustafa Koray Gümüştaş from Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Director of Health Services Vocational School. Our school started providing education in 1985 with the Dental Prosthesis Technology Program at Istanbul University; Later, by including Medical Imaging, Medical Laboratory Techniques, Nuclear Medicine, Radiotherapy, Oral and Dental Health and Medical Documentation and Secretariat programs, it continues providing education with 7 programs. We are planning to open a Disabled Care Program, which will begin taking students next year. Apart from that, we run these programs in two parts. Oral Health and Dental Prosthesis Technology is included in the Department of Dentistry. Our other programs are included in the other medical services department. We plan to gather our Disabled Care program under one roof with our Social Service Program. All of our programs are health-related programs. Although the content of the Medical Documentation and Secretariat Program is not based on health, we have included it among the health programs, as it is secretarial work has become important in our day and age. Currently, there is a pandemic in our country and in the world. Health programs have become very important. Indeed, the people who have graduated from our programs are doing the Covid-19 tests, they are our imaging technicians who do the imaging and our nuclear medicine technicians. They provide valuable services, such as the pre-diagnosis of conditions such as cancer and Covid. Therefore, the main places they are employed are hospitals, government organizations and other foundation university hospitals. Therefore, finding a job for our students is not much of a problem, and these students, who we have trained well, can easily be employed in the sector. Since the programs of our college are health programs, we have integrated with the Faculty of Medicine of our university. Because we have to give our applied trainings in Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Hospital service laboratories and polyclinics. Our students are divided into departments and classes, and on certain days of the week, at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, they work in the clinics, in imaging laboratories and in service laboratories such as Microbiology, Biochemistry, Haematology, Blood Banks, and complete their practical training. Internships are not included in the education program. Because internships are usually held in the summer months, and many of your students from outside of the city have problems related to accommodation in the city in summer. We try to prevent this by performing the applications for internship personally in the Faculty of Medicine, in different laboratories with on-site application. However, since there is no student admission to service laboratories during the pandemic period, we are trying to close these gaps of the students by shooting videos and skill courses and presenting professional images in our practice courses. While our students are in a single laboratory during the internship, when we send them to different laboratories with on-site applications to serve or receive training, they have the chance to serve us in a wider field. They acquire more knowledge and skills. Our experiences in the past years have verified this. When our students, who go to various interviews to find a job, present their skills, they are accepted as students who are acceptable to work. Since our students are healthcare professionals, they are primarily employed by the Ministry of Health. In the meantime, they can also find work in foundation university hospitals, private hospitals, polyclinics and many units of family medicine. The working conditions of healthcare personnel are under the control of the Ministry of Health. Therefore, apart from private laboratories, they can work in many areas of health. Oral and Dental Health, Prosthetic Technology, laboratory, and imaging technicians can work in the relevant units. For example, our Oral and Dental Health Program students assist the dental team in dentistry. Another feature of our Prosthetic Technology students is that they have the opportunity to open an independent prosthesis laboratory. They also independently shape prostheses made by dentists in the laboratory. Our Medical Laboratory Techniques Program students can work in laboratories of medicine. Our Medical Imaging Techniques Program technicians work in imaging units affiliated to Radiology. In addition, we have Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy technicians. Our radiotherapy technicians can work in the units that irradiate cancer. Our nuclear medicine technicians can work in diagnostic nuclear medicine units, PET units, which focus on imaging techniques. Since our programs are associate degree programs, our students do not have a chance to go abroad in this 2-year program. Because they have a short education period, they can only complete their course requirements in their own program. However, we know that our students who are proficient in foreign languages ​​and have connections abroad have gone there to work. Because many of our students and graduates are prepared to issue English transcripts with or without notarization and with our approval, in health institutions abroad. We know that they have served in England, America, Australia, and Germany. Employment of university students is a general problem in our country. But we see observe that the chances of our students working in health-related fields are somewhat higher. Therefore, our students who choose the field of health have a higher opportunity to find a job. And health, as an important issue since human history, stands before us as a preferable field in terms of being beneficial to the society, family and environment of the student. We moved from Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty to a building allocated to us by the municipality in the Sultangazi district. Here, we combined our facilities with the Social Sciences Vocational School and provided our students with social facilities such as a dining hall and a library. Our students are happy to be in a new building, large classrooms and social settings. After graduation, most of our students want to get a job that they are paid for. But some of our students are eager to pursue a career. We direct them to the Vertical Transfer Exam. Our students generally have the opportunity to move vertically to other fields of health such as medical biology, genetics and molecular biology. In this sense, we also have students who have made a vertical transfer and switched to a medical school and are currently studying at the medical faculty. Indeed, the field of health has become even more important with the pandemic and this field is a preferable field for students today. Of course, working conditions are arduous and demanding. However, our students should prefer health programs which they can get into with their scores in order to be beneficial to our environment, society and humanity. We can say that it’s a better field in terms of employment opportunities than most. I wish success to our students who will choose Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Health Services Vocational School.