Prof. Dr. Hamit OKUR

There is another holiday that we celebrate every year together with Medicine Day. And that is the Çanakkale victory. Today, on March 18, we celebrate the Çanakkale Victory together with Medicine Day. 95 years have passed since the Çanakkale Victory. However, in those days when everything was over, hopes were exhausted, and poverty and famine left people helpless, our glorious ancestors not only won the war, but also taught the whole world a lesson in humanity with the beauties they showed in that war. He bandaged his wounds when he was wounded, carried him on his back and helped him when he was crippled, shared a drop of his own water and a morsel of bread when he was hungry and thirsty, fed him without eating, and gave him to drink without drinking. As the poet said, we were once a nation, and what a nation we were.
We came and taught the world what humanity is.

Yes, my dear colleagues, our glorious history is full of examples of humanity exhibited by our ancestors. Recent examples of this He demonstrated it in the War of Independence in Çanakkale and showed the best examples of love and compassion even to his enemies. They fought for the survival of the last Turkish State, fell martyrs, and defended this heavenly homeland heroically and entrusted it to us. It meant the unity of a whole nation with Çanakkale Turks, Kurds, Yoruks and Roma. This unity of belief and unity of purpose was victorious against the enemy, which had vastly superior forces both materially and numerically.
Now more than ever, humanity needs love, friendship and peace. If we can show each other the friendship, love and compassion that our ancestors showed to the enemy in war, if we can love each other, if we can strive for unconditional help and goodness It is very important to make first our country and then the world compassionate and humane We will have taken a step.

Eid is the day of joy, love and happiness. As humans, the moment and day when every event that makes us happy, makes us happy, and cheers us up is our holiday. The day we start school is a holiday, the day we finish school well is a holiday, the day we get a diploma and start our professional life is a holiday, the day we unite our lives with our loved ones is a holiday, the day we become a mother or father is a holiday... Every happiness brings us the joy of holiday. Medicine Day, which we celebrate every year on March 14, is also a day of the year that we doctors celebrate as a holiday. However, for us, the holiday is not and should not be limited to March 14... Every day that makes us happy, cheers us up, and excites us is a holiday for us doctors.

As a profession, we have perhaps the best profession that God has blessed us with. We have a very beautiful profession that many people around us envy, wish they were doctors too, and envy us. As the poet says, "There are those who live in the sea, but they do not know the sea." Maybe we are not aware of this, but if we asked the people around us, could we see a person who does not want to be a doctor? There is no need to ask, it should not be difficult to read this feeling from the looks and facial expressions of the people around us. So where does this appeal of being a doctor come from? Of course, it comes from his dealings with people and the beauties he brings to human life...

Think of a child. He is writhing with abdominal pain and moaning loudly. Either his appendix burst or his stomach was punctured. Their parents are begging and praying for their child's suffering to end as soon as possible. Every minute that passes is agony for that child and unbearable pain for the mother and father. And as a surgeon, you quickly get up from your bed, go into surgery, and save that child from pain and that mother and father from despair, no matter what time of the day it is, perhaps at three o'clock at night, when you receive a phone call while everyone is sleeping sweetly in their warm nests. After all, what could make a person happier than seeing the expression of gratitude and happiness on that family's face? That moment is a holiday for us. It is a day worth celebrating and applauding.

Think of a woman. A pregnant woman. Maybe she's pregnant with her first child. While everything was going well, she suddenly started contracting, but there are still weeks left before birth. You immediately run to the emergency room, examine him, diagnose that the child's life is in danger and take him into emergency caesarean section surgery. You are instrumental in both saving the mother and bringing the baby, which the family longs for, to be born in a healthy way. Maybe a delay of a few hours would cause the child to be lost. Because you know this, you run to the hospital without hesitation and undergo a cesarean section. The sound of the child's first cry after birth caresses your heart, and the feeling of gratitude on the mother's face washes away all your tiredness. That moment is a holiday for you. It is a day worth celebrating and applauding.

Think of a day when you were on duty at the hospital. A patient comes to the emergency department with either post-traumatic respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest due to acute myocardial infarction. More accurately, you accept ex duhul. One hope is that you immediately think about the importance of seconds and start resuscitation. You plan and apply airway, breathing, circulation and emergency intravenous fluid infusion treatments in seconds and see the patient's heartbeat and breathing. You experience that you helped revive a dead patient who entered the emergency room by giving commands like "Oh, try a little faster." You give the good news to the relatives of the patients who gather at the door in hopeless expectation. You see people waiting in hopeless expectation come to life, hug you with happiness, as if they were that patient coming back to life. That moment is a holiday for you. It is a day worth celebrating and applauding.

You hear that there are people and children in Africa who have not seen the light since birth due to cataract disease, have not seen the world, have not seen their home, their road, and most importantly have not seen their mother, father and all their loved ones, but have been living in a dark world since birth. You sacrifice your job, your spouse, your family and run to be the light and the sun for those people who are thousands of kilometers away and long for light. You see each child you help caressing his mother's face and kissing and hugging her with happiness over and over again. You witness each person you help see seeing their spouse for the first time, and you experience that happy moment together. That moment is a holiday for you. It is a day worth celebrating and applauding.

Wherever there is a disaster, you are the first to rush there. Wherever there is a disaster, you are the first to arrive. You are the light of hope for children left without parents, people who have lost their homes, their spouses, their vaccines, and the disabled and helpless in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Haiti. As a doctor, you share your bread, water, and clothes with the people you rush to help, you don't eat, you feed them, you don't drink, you give them to drink. You become hungry, dehydrated and even sick with them. But you can read the hopeful looks in their eyes that make those people feel that they are not alone and that someone from miles away is running to help them. That moment is a holiday for you. It is a day worth celebrating and applauding.

With what hopes did you choose the profession of doctor when you graduated from high school and chose the Faculty of Medicine? At that age, you envied the life, economic situation and life of doctors and decided to become a doctor. However, when you graduated from the faculty of medicine and were appointed as a doctor in the compulsory service draw to the remote towns of Anatolia, where there is no electricity or water and where people long for civilization live, you were faced with the reality of how painful, troublesome and demanding a profession this profession is. Maybe it was the first time in your life that you left the warm family environment and went as a doctor to deprived mountain towns with no heating, hot water or hot bread. The local people welcomed you with great enthusiasm and showed you the best examples of the hospitality of the Anatolian people. You also served those people wholeheartedly, with the happiness of serving those people twenty-four hours a day, sharing the same life with those people, and being a salve for the troubles of those suffering people. You have never been able to find or experience anything else like the joy and pleasure of expressing with words the gratitude of hundreds and perhaps thousands of patients whose pain you have relieved, whose fever you have reduced, and whose illnesses you have treated, every time they meet you, and of saying amen to the prayers they pray to you. Every day you spent on those mountain tops was a holiday for you. It was a day worth celebrating and applauding.

Yes, dear friends. We cannot thank God enough for blessing us with such a beautiful profession. The value of relieving the suffering of people writhing in pain, being balm for their wounds, and giving hope to life to helpless people who have given up hope of living cannot be measured by anything. Rank, position, money, money, glory, fame are all temporary; they are only the outward beauties that satisfy and make people happy in this world. What is real is the beauties, happiness and eternal happiness that the good deeds we have done in this world, the good deeds we have done without expecting anything in return, the sacrifices will bring us in the afterlife, which is the real life and where we will be held accountable for everything we have done...
Yunus Emre said it beautifully:
If you have reached a patient
If you have given him a drink of water
Tomorrow will come against you
As if God has drunk your wine

Let's do our job with this awareness. Let's think about the spiritual pleasure of our work rather than its material aspect. Just as love means loving without expecting anything in return, being a doctor means serving without expecting anything in return. Let us fall in love with our profession, with the awareness of this sacred duty ordained for us in this world. Then we love what we do, find happiness and celebrate.
Happy Eid...

FESTIVAL OF US DOCTORS