Dr. F. Çağla Uyanusta Küçük

I brought my 4-year-old son, Ali, to Dr. Çağla after weeks of a persistent, barking cough that kept him up at night. Our pediatrician was concerned about possible early asthma. From the moment we entered her office at Ankara Hospital Acibadem, she had this incredible way of connecting with children. She didn't just talk to me; she got down on his level, showed him the stethoscope ('a listening dinosaur'), and made him laugh. Her diagnosis was swift but thorough—vocal cord dysfunction mimicking asthma, not the chronic condition we feared. She gave us breathing exercises framed as 'superhero training.' It's been three months, and the nighttime coughing has completely stopped. She turned a scary possibility into a manageable game for a little boy.

As a 72-year-old retired teacher with a 40-year smoking history (quit 10 years ago), I was terrified when a routine chest X-ray showed a suspicious shadow. The referral to Dr. Uyanusta Küçük felt like a death sentence. But her approach was unlike any specialist I've met. She spent an hour with me, drawing diagrams of my lungs, explaining the possibilities without sugarcoating but also without inducing panic. She coordinated a same-day CT scan and a bronchoscopy within 48 hours. During the procedure, her calm narration ('Now we're turning the corner, you're doing perfectly') kept me from panicking. The mass was benign—a granuloma from an old infection. She didn't just give me a diagnosis; she gave me back my peace of mind with her meticulous, compassionate science.

This was no routine checkup. I'm a 38-year-old marathon runner, and I suddenly couldn't climb a flight of stairs without gasping. My local clinic said it was anxiety. After collapsing at the gym, I was rushed to Acibadem Ankara's ER. Dr. Çağla was the on-call pulmonologist. In the chaos, her focus was laser-sharp. She suspected a pulmonary embolism immediately. While the nurses hooked me to monitors, she was already ordering a CT pulmonary angiography and explaining the urgency to me in clear, short sentences. She was right. A massive bilateral PE. She managed my thrombolytic therapy in the ICU herself, checking on me every few hours. Her decisiveness in that emergency saved my life. Now, in follow-ups, she's as focused on my long-term recovery and mental health as she was on the initial crisis.

My case was complex: bronchiectasis with recurrent Pseudomonas infections that had resisted multiple antibiotic regimens. I'd seen several pulmonologists who just cycled through stronger drugs. Dr. Çağla did a deep dive. She reviewed years of my records, ordered a sputum culture with sensitivity testing I'd never had before, and proposed a targeted, inhaled antibiotic protocol combined with a rigorous chest physiotherapy schedule. She even collaborated with the hospital's infectious disease specialist to design a synergistic approach. For the first time in years, I've gone 6 months without a major exacerbation. Her strength is seeing the patient behind the complex chart—she remembers my hobby (pottery) and asks how my lung function affects it. She doesn't just treat diseases; she engineers solutions for lives interrupted by them.