Faculty of Medicine

I am Prof. Dr. Hanefi Uzbek. I am the Deputy Dean of Izmir Bakırçay University’s Faculty of Medicine. In the 2018 - 2019 academic year, we started taking our first students with the approval of the Higher Education Board. I think it will be very easy to provide training and to continue this training in the best possible way, as Çiğli Training and Research Hospital, which we have a contract with, has a 517 bed capacity. Therefore, our Faculty of Medicine students will be able to receive this training without any difficulties in terms of both the patient variety and the patient number. I also don’t think there will be problem in terms of patient variety and number when students who wish to continue with their education by doing a specialization start coming to our university and faculty. Our Faculty of Medicine students will study their first, second and third years at Seyrek-Menemen Campus. The clinical training in their fourth, fifth and sixth year will be carried out at our hospital. We have to offer a large number of courses to our medical students. Medicine is a very wide field. Hence, these lessons differ in the first, second and third year. We offer the medical-related courses that you can imagine such as Medical Pharmacology, Medical Biochemistry, Medical History and Deontology, General Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics, Urology, Neurosurgery, and Plastic Surgery to our undergraduate students. These courses are given to the students in their first 5 years. At this point, I would like to state that we will give special importance to the Statistics course. This is because after graduation, students realize how important statistics is, especially when they pass the Medical Specialization Exam (TUS) and start their specialty training. These graduates have great difficulty because they did not receive this training in time. We aim to provide this training during the undergraduate period, during the proper time it should be given. We’ve seen what an important area of science public health is during the pandemic period. We will also offer courses in this field, and provide our students with all kinds of assistance in this regard. Upon the completion of all the courses, we have the 6th year. During their 6th year, students do an internship training. During this period, our students will work in various clinics as if they were doctors and prove themselves there. So, our lessons will continue for 5 years, and we will deliver an internship training in the last year. In order for our students to not only work in our hospital, we can also ask them to work in other hospitals, too. We think this will be beneficial for students. Because not every hospital is the same, their facilities are different. So, after graduation, the student can go to hospitals with much better opportunities, as well as to places with more limited means. That is why I believe it is important for students to see and experience them all.
We prepare our Faculty of Medicine students with laboratory facilities which are appropriate for their courses. For example, our laboratory facilities are ready for the Pharmacology and Pathology courses. We also have a special location for anatomy. Anatomy is a very important field. It is vital for the students to study on a good cadaver, bones and various models. Therefore, a good anatomy laboratory is needed. The materials and the laboratory for this course are ready, too. We will make them available for the use of our students. Of course, education no longer continues only with these, newer things are required. For example, a Professional Skills Training Center is required. We are currently establishing it. A Simulation Center is required, students will learn what they will do in the future with simulations. Suppose a patient came, and the student was alone with the patient. If the student graduates and is just sent out to the field, if they are experiencing something for the first time, they will be in great trouble. In such a case, the simulation centers make a great contribution. The student sits there as if they were a graduate doctor, and their patient comes. They welcome their patient and communication with them. They carry out their examination and makes the necessary requests. They make their diagnoses and writes their prescription. When we do these with our own means, our student graduate as physicians who are more self-confident and prepared. During their education, our students can take theoretical lessons from their professors, especially in clinics, and practice in clinics. These may not be sufficient for the student's aptitude for scientific research. In such a case, the student should be able to go on the internet, access medical databases, conduct research and searches there, and check if there are new developments about their own questions or regarding their patients. Therefore, students should also be prepared in this respect. For this purpose, we are planning to hold student congresses and symposiums for our students. We have done this in other places, and we found that our students benefit greatly from it. Therefore, we will provide these opportunities to our students in İzmir Bakırçay University’s Faculty of Medicine. We can do this face-to-face as well as online. Thus, our students will have the opportunity to talk, interview and exchange ideas with scientists both online and face to face. They will have learned these at the right time. When people become a scientist straight after they graduate from university and complete their Ph.D., many subjects are left incomplete. However, it is necessary to provide our students with the necessary infrastructure while they are young so that we can save time. Therefore, it is very valuable for our students to participate in activities such as congresses and symposiums. However, doing these are not enough. Biostatistics is very important for a student, that is, a scientist to benefit from science sufficiently. Therefore, we will specially educate our students on this subject.
Our university will be able to send our students to other cities or countries, or take students from there to our university through exchange programs such as Mevlana, Farabi and Erasmus. I think such student exchange programs are extremely valuable for students. Thus, the student can receive all of his education in many different faculties and not just one faculty. If they are worried about going abroad, this can resolve it. According to our laws, once a medical school student graduates they can practice medicine. They can work as a physician in different family centers and hospitals. They can work in different places across Turkey. Graduates have a wide variety of job opportunities, ranging from working as prison physicians to workplace physicians. They can work as academic staff members. They can prepare for this by being successful in the Medical Specialization Exam or doing their Ph.D. Once they have completed this they can work as Assist., Assoc. or Professors. Graduates of the Medical Faculty can also work in the pharmaceutical industry. Here, they can work in qualified and special positions. As the public also knows due to the pandemic, we have phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 studies. At this point, it is necessary for physicians to work as people are being treated. So which physicians should work? Not a pharmacologist, internist or other physician. Physicians who have a specialism in the study concerned are needed. Therefore, after completing their background in clinical research, our students can also take part in important studies. They can contribute to the development of a variety of medicines and vaccines worldwide. In other words, there is no field in which a medical graduate cannot work. Let me give another example, for example, if a person who has become an ear-nose-throat specialist also has musical talent, then they can treat vocalists and musicians in matters related to sound. Most musicians cannot conserve their voices as they do not know how to protect their throat structures, mouths and teeth. Even a simple tooth extraction can change just about everything for a vocalist. A tonsil surgery can change their vocal structure. Just a simple wrong move, or an excessive tiring of the voice may create a sound nodule, and this person's music career may end. We need a consultant for these kinds of situations. This consultant can be a good ear-nose-throat specialist with sufficient background in these matters. We can give many other similar examples. Therefore, the fields where our physicians can work when they graduate are extremely wide and they are also related to their imaginations. The wider the fantasy world, the more work areas there can be.
We have around 30 students in each class. This is actually a very valuable number for education. In other words, when our students choose İzmir Bakırçay University Faculty of Medicine, they will have the opportunity to receive a closer and more friendly education. Due to the small number of students especially in clinics, they will be able to work more intensively with their professors and other relevant healthcare professionals. A master-apprentice relationship is especially essential in the medical field to receive a good education. Therefore, I think that our faculty will give our students an advantage over other faculties in terms of master-apprentice relationships. Students needs such as accommodation, food and social activities are especially important for students coming from outside of the city. İzmir Bakırçay University has very good opportunities in this regard. There are quite a lot of possibilities both in our campus and in Menemen-Seyrek Village where our campus is located. There are various restaurants, private dormitories, and cafeterias in our campus. I don’t think our students will experience any difficulty in this regard. Apart from that, we also want our students to engage extra-curricular activities. I believe that not only students from the Medical Faculty but also students from the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Law should be involved in sports or art. That’s why I would like to ask the students who will come here to prepare themselves for this. I hope it will be a useful training process. We all know the importance of a faculty being accredited. However, in order for this accreditation process to commence, the faculty must give its first graduates.
When that happens, the accreditation process can become operational. We will start these activities after we have our first graduates and we will do the necessary preparations for our university's Faculty of Medicine to be accredited worldwide. Our students should have peace of mind about this. We are awaiting the arrival of our new students to İzmir Bakırçay University, Faculty of Medicine in the 2021 – 2022 academic year.