The 50th session of the "1 Konu 1 Konuk" (1 Topic 1 Guest) program, organized by Üsküdar Üniversitesi Occupational Safety, Health and Environmental Health Application and Research Center, was held. The guest of the program was Dr. Lecturer Rüştü Uçan, Head of the Occupational Health and Safety Department at Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Health Sciences. Uçan made evaluations on the topic of "The Importance of Studying Occupational Health and Safety at Undergraduate Level and its Contribution to Professional Development."
Dr. Lecturer Rüştü Uçan, Head of the Occupational Health and Safety Department at Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Health Sciences, provided information about the Occupational Health and Safety department.
"We want to work by adapting to innovations"
Dr. Lecturer Rüştü Uçan, Head of the Occupational Health and Safety Department, who provided information about the Occupational Health and Safety department, said; "We continue to be a pioneer as a Laboratory in Turkey. I have been at the helm for 8 years. Over these 8 years, we have positively developed the courses, especially by establishing Erasmus international connections and organizing various symposiums, making the subject more current. We do not want occupational safety to be limited only to theoretical lessons. We want to constantly update occupational safety and work by adapting to innovations. As Üsküdar Üniversitesi, we continue our work with the support of many lecturers, including myself as the head of the department, Müge Hoca, Nuri Bingöl, and Tuğçe Hoca. If we look at the question 'What is occupational health and safety?', it is the efforts to maintain and raise the physical, mental, and social well-being of employees in all professions to higher levels. For students pursuing a 4-year undergraduate degree in occupational health and safety, the necessary courses, lecturers, laboratory facilities, and internships are useful to the extent they can be well-developed."
"Appropriate working conditions compliant with occupational safety must be established in every workplace"
Uçan mentioned that they particularly emphasize the importance of English education for students; "From the very first day you enter the university, we especially emphasize the importance of English education. If you can speak English and comfortably express yourself by the time you graduate, it will always be beneficial. Every year, one or two students go to Portugal and study for a semester at the Technical University of Portugal. Since the courses they study in Portugal are not equivalent to ours, students can complete their university in 4 years without any loss. Students with a certain GPA have the opportunity to pursue a double major. What is nice here is that our students, especially, can also double major in engineering from occupational health and safety. Despite being discontinued in many engineering programs, we still offer AUTOCAD courses. With drawing courses, it is important for students to be able to create floor plans themselves if they encounter an emergency situation in the future. While still studying, students develop themselves by taking a five-hour course per semester on how to read a project and how to draw a project. We believe these are always beneficial approaches. For example, we made statics a compulsory course. When we included statics, we thought that an occupational safety specialist working on a machine needs to know at least the theory of what kind of difficulties exist, what kind of dynamic effects parts are subjected to. When they are proficient in these subjects, they will approach problems accordingly. If we look at the job areas, before the 6331 Occupational Health and Safety law was enacted, there was only one department serving all sectors in Turkey, and that was the accounting department. After the 6331 law, we became occupational health and safety because currently, risk analysis must be conducted in every workplace, and working conditions compliant with occupational safety must be established in every workplace."
"We want to work by adapting occupational safety to innovations"
Dr. Lecturer Rüştü Uçan, who stated that the more knowledge and experience can be transferred to students, the more successful they will be; "In occupational safety, especially in European countries, if you develop your language from the beginning, there is a need for people who know their job and do it correctly. We proudly say this; many of our students work in such companies abroad. They work as lecturers or trainers elsewhere. We do not want occupational safety to remain merely as a classroom subject. We want to update occupational safety currently and work by adapting it to innovations. We have progressed so far with the support of our experienced lecturers, recognized in the market, who have worked for thirty or forty years. We have seen that the more knowledge we have and the more experience we can transfer, the more successful we are. Their support has continued from the very first day, for 6-7 years since the beginning."
The event concluded after participants' questions were answered.