Patient Experience
My 82-year-old father, Ahmet, fell in the garden and fractured his hip. The ambulance brought him to Acıbadem Eskişehir in immense pain. Dr. İsmet Topaç was like a calm commander in the storm of the ER. He didn't just see an 'elderly fall'—he immediately recognized Dad's underlying Parkinson's tremor and coordinated with neurology while stabilizing the fracture. His hands were steady, his voice was a low, reassuring rumble that cut through Dad's confusion. He explained the surgical pinning procedure to us in plain Turkish, drawing on a napkin. Post-op, he visited at 11 PM just to check Dad's vitals himself. Dad calls him 'the mountain doctor'—unmovable, dependable. We're forever grateful.
It was a Saturday market chaos when my 5-year-old, Elif, shoved a dried apricot pit so deep up her nose we couldn't see it. She was hysterical, I was panicking. Dr. Topaç met us in triage with a surprisingly gentle smile for a trauma specialist. He didn't reach for scary tools first. Instead, he performed 'magic'—he had Elif lie down, pinched her other nostril, and told me to give her a quick, firm mouth-to-mouth blow. The pit shot out! He called it the 'parent's kiss technique.' He then spent 10 minutes with Elif, showing her how the otoscope worked and letting her listen to his own heartbeat with the stethoscope, turning trauma into wonder. A true healer of fear.
I'm a long-distance truck driver and walked into the ER with what I thought was just brutal heartburn after days of bad road food. Dr. Topaç took one look at my sweating complexion and the way I was pressing my jaw, and bypassed the entire queue. He barked orders in a tone that brooked no argument—'ECG now, troponin levels, prep for cath lab.' It was a major anterior MI. He later told me my description of pain radiating to the jaw was a textbook red flag I'd ignored. His no-nonsense, rapid-fire decision-making in those first 15 minutes literally saved my heart muscle. No pleasantries, just breathtaking, life-saving efficiency. I owe him my wheels, and my life.
Following a complex motorcycle accident where I had a flail chest and a lacerated spleen, my recovery involved multiple follow-ups in the outpatient clinic. This is where I saw another side of Dr. Topaç. Away from the ER sirens, he was meticulously detail-oriented. He'd palpate my rib cage with surgical precision, comparing his handwritten diagrams from the day of the accident to my current healing. He remembered the specific brand of my motorcycle and joked about switching to a bicycle. His follow-up wasn't just a glance; it was a forensic audit of my healing. He spotted a nascent infection at a suture site I'd missed and treated it immediately. His continuity of care, from chaos to calm recovery, is unparalleled.