M.D. Babak Hekmatjou

I was hiking near Bodrum when a rockfall caused a severe compound fracture in my leg. By the time I reached Acibadem, I was in shock. Dr. Hekmatjou didn't just treat the wound—he managed my entire trauma response with astonishing calm. What stood out was how he explained the sequential surgical plan while simultaneously directing his team to stabilize my vitals. He performed the initial debridement himself, then coordinated with orthopedics for the reconstruction. His follow-up visits felt like strategic debriefings; he'd analyze my healing progress like a puzzle, adjusting pain management and mobility protocols with precision. This wasn't just emergency medicine—it was trauma orchestration.

My 4-year-old son swallowed a small lithium battery from a toy. The panic was indescribable. Dr. Hekmatjou met us at the ambulance bay, already having reviewed the toy's model from our frantic call. While comforting my son with a silly story about a 'button that needed to come back up,' he was orchestrating a rapid endoscopy team. He explained the chemical burn timeline to us in clear, terrifyingly honest terms that somehow made us trust him completely. The procedure was successful, but what I'll never forget is how he returned two hours post-op just to show us the retrieved battery in a specimen jar—'the culprit,' he called it—and spent 20 minutes teaching my son (through puppets!) what not to put in his mouth.

As a 78-year-old with congestive heart failure, I presented with what I thought was severe indigestion. Dr. Hekmatjou, during what was supposed to be a routine check of my edema, noticed a specific pattern in my jugular vein that I hadn't even mentioned. He canceled his lunch and performed a bedside ultrasound himself, discovering a pericardial effusion that was tamponading. The way he escalated the situation was masterful—no alarm, just a steady increase in urgency. He personally wheeled me to cath lab, briefing the cardiologist en route with data points he'd collected himself. Later, he visited my ICU bed and explained the physiology using the water glass and straw from my tray. He treats the elderly like complex systems, not fragile objects.

I'm a commercial diver who suffered a rapid ascent decompression injury. The local clinic misdiagnosed it as musculoskeletal pain. Dr. Hekmatjou, reviewing my dive computer data I'd brought on my phone, immediately recognized the inconsistent depth profile. He didn't just order a hyperbaric chamber; he personally called the naval base to secure emergency access, arguing the case with military precision about tissue saturation curves. During the 6-hour treatment, he checked on me three times, not just medically but asking detailed questions about my gear and dive patterns to reconstruct the incident. His aftercare included a custom return-to-work protocol he designed with a diving physician colleague. He approaches niche emergencies like a forensic investigator building a case.