Founding Dean Prof. Dr. Haydar Sur, who opposes concerns that technology will eliminate the medical profession, said, “Medical practices and the medical profession will not be the same as before. We are aware of this. However, the claim that 'Artificial Intelligence will replace physicians' is entirely false. People who say this have understood neither medicine nor artificial intelligence.”
Prof. Dr. Sur: “There are no deficiencies in our educational infrastructure; our cadavers, classrooms, and library are complete. Our students are integrated into the scientific world from their second year onwards.”
Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Medicine Dean Prof. Dr. Haydar Sur explained that medicine is undergoing the most fundamental and rapid change in its history.
Medicine will never be a thing of the past
Answering concerns and questions that technology would eliminate the medical profession, Prof. Dr. Haydar Sur said, “The days we live in are the years when medicine is experiencing the fastest and most fundamental changes in its tens of thousands of years of history. Nothing will be the same; medical practices and the medical profession will not be the same. We are aware of this. However, the claim that 'Artificial Intelligence will replace physicians' is entirely false. People who say this have understood neither medicine nor artificial intelligence. Because situations where artificial intelligence will be beneficial will always be situations where humans keep that artificial intelligence under control. For this reason, medicine will never be a thing of the past; rather, it will be one of the professions that uses artificial intelligence the most. This also makes it easier for us to foresee the physician profile of the 21st century today.”
Physicians will also be the best users of artificial intelligence
“Physicians have always been intelligent people; physicians will also be the best users of artificial intelligence,” said Prof. Dr. Sur, adding, "I can articulate the opposite of the claim that Artificial Intelligence will replace physicians as follows: Physicians will be among the professional groups that use artificial intelligence the most. The change will happen in this direction. Then we will maintain our close relationship with technology, machine learning, and the internet of things, and enable it to transfer data to the perfect filter of the human brain. Our work will become much easier, we will be able to practice medicine much more accurately, our skills will develop, and we will become physicians who make far fewer mistakes in our diagnoses, treatment methods, and evaluation of laboratory findings.”
Medicine and engineering are converging
Stating that they partially reflect technological change in medical faculty education, Prof. Dr. Sur continued:
“However, this is not enough. We have to do much more in the coming years. Because it is a fact: the medical profession is approaching the engineering profession. Due to bioengineering, biomedical engineering, molecular biology, and genetic studies, the distance between these two professions is narrowing, and we have a necessity to meet in common projects. Neither physicians alone can fully master this change, nor can engineers. Because they don't know the health side either. We will combine our strengths and work together to find the point of training physicians who serve humanity best using artificial intelligence.”
The great importance of multidisciplinary work
Stating that there are joint courses with engineering faculties in the health informatics and technologies section, Prof. Dr. Sur said, “But this is not enough. From the cellular level up to all diagnostic and treatment methods we use in healthcare, multidisciplinary work is of great importance. The unknowns of the human body are still very many. What we know is very little compared to what we don't know. Multidisciplinary studies will be critical in this journey of discovering those unknowns together.”
Project management-based medicine…
Prof. Dr. Haydar Sur also stated that medicine will be more project management-based than ever before, noting:
“This requires an innovative stance. The human brain will still be there in estimating unknowns, in saying 'I can investigate this with this method'. Machines and artificial intelligence will provide us with that data in hypothesizing and questioning it. It will also shed light on generating hypotheses by analyzing big data. However, the contribution of the results from this big data to the human body, human life, human soul, and the construction of healthier individuals and society will again be through the human brain. While artificial intelligence presents us with data and results as dead figures, the human brain will bring them to life, adapt them to life, and make great contributions even in humanity's search for an answer to the question 'Why did I come into this world?'”
Education at Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Medicine
Stating that quality medical education stands on a three-legged stool, Prof. Dr. Sur said, “Firstly, the excellent setup of educational infrastructure, environments, and information systems; secondly, the excellent teaching of this at the classroom level; and thirdly, ensuring a master-apprentice relationship in the practical application of the profession. At Üsküdar Faculty of Medicine, we provide rigorous education for the first three years with over 40 basic science instructors. Our students undergo very intensive training in the 2nd and 3rd years, but courses like physiology, anatomy, and histology draw them to medicine. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth years, they undergo practical internships in both our affiliated hospitals and the Ministry of Health Training and Research Hospitals. Thus, by experiencing every environment, they receive solid practical training within all four walls.”
Students integrate into the scientific world from their second year
Stating that graduates say, “When we went, we received much appreciation, and we realized how many wonderful things you taught us in the first 3 years,” Prof. Dr. Sur said, “There are no deficiencies in our educational infrastructure; our cadavers, classrooms, and library are complete. Our students are integrated into the scientific world from their second year onwards. When I see our students working diligently and encouraging each other in the library, the fatigue of 60 years leaves me.”
The pride of being a founding dean
Prof. Dr. Haydar Sur also expressed his feelings about the faculty, which graduated its first students this year, as follows:
“I was very excited when I graduated in 1986. But frankly, I was even more excited when I presented diplomas to the first graduates of the faculty we established with our own hands. Instilling values such as medical ethics, love for humanity, and health preservation in many young people as they embark on life is an insatiable happiness and great satisfaction for a professor.”
Prof. Dr. Sur, stating that students who choose the Faculty of Medicine, especially Üsküdar Medicine, make very conscious choices and say, "We read the CVs of all the professors and came, we know you," continued, “They sit down as a family and read the CVs of all the professors. This is also an advantage of Üsküdar Faculty of Medicine; you cannot point to a single professor who just happened to come here. Each of them has a success story in the established medical faculties of our country. They brought this experience here. We started as if we were a 40-year-old faculty. If our students are not so conscious and questioning, I will have no reason to strive either. One of my students asked such a question that I said, ‘Children, I don’t know this, allow me to read up on it and come back next week.’ I went, studied, and explained it the following week. The student who asked the question said, ‘Professor, I didn't believe it, but you took it seriously, I understood that you value me.’ A professor's greatest source of energy, their battery, is their student.”
The difficulty of medical education and the importance of cadavers
“The Faculty of Medicine is a 6-year education with 42 main branches. A general practitioner must have knowledge and experience in each of these 42 branches. This experience is learned in practice, not in the classroom,” said Prof. Dr. Sur, continuing:
“Cadaver-based education is very important in medical training. We have both a model laboratory acquired from the most prestigious brands and a cadaver hall. We first demonstrate on the model, then move to the cadaver. A cadaver, even if lifeless, is the first encounter with a human body. There, we teach how to dissect the human body, and at the same time, respect for humans and human anatomy. We say: 'This person, by donating their body to science, enables you to save many people's lives. If you do not respect this person, you cannot respect a living person either.' That hall is a sacred place for us. It is very important for our students to acquire this discipline in terms of how they will shape up as physicians.”
A message to future physician candidates
Addressing future physician candidates, Prof. Dr. Sur concluded, “If you love dealing with people, if you want to be a member of a profession that directly affects their lives, if you want to earn not only material income but also human affection and gratitude, you cannot find a better profession than medicine. Becoming a physician is a bit difficult, but not that difficult. Nothing done with love feels difficult to a person. Put your hand deep into your heart. If you say, 'I love people, I will have a profession that deals with people,' the best profession you can choose is medicine.”
A game-changing minor opportunity for medical students!
Drawing attention to Üsküdar Üniversitesi, which stands out with its thematic education model in health and behavioral sciences, taking a step that breaks traditional boundaries in Medical and Dentistry education and opening up brand new horizons for its students, Sur emphasized that they educate their students multidisciplinarily with minor opportunities. Sur said, “Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry students can now add a multidisciplinary vision to their careers by minoring in many different fields, from engineering to psychology, from forensic sciences to health management. Thanks to this new opportunity, a medical student can specialize in developing artificial intelligence applications in healthcare or telemedicine systems in the future by minoring in Computer or Software Engineering. Similarly, with a Biomedical Engineering minor, they can gain in-depth knowledge in areas such as genetics and tissue engineering. A dentistry student, by minoring in Psychology, can make a difference in communicating with patients experiencing dental phobia and managing treatment processes. This multidisciplinary approach provides graduates not only a second specialization certificate but also the competence to produce innovative solutions to the complex problems of the modern healthcare sector.”