M.D. Muhammed Sami Tufan

Our 92-year-old grandmother, Ayşe, was admitted with severe pneumonia complicated by her existing heart condition. Most doctors saw only her age, but Dr. Tufan, though a pediatrician, was consulted due to a complex drug interaction issue affecting her great-grandchild who visited daily. He didn't just review the chart; he spent an hour cross-referencing pediatric and geriatric pharmacology databases, identifying a rare airborne allergen transfer risk we hadn't considered. His intervention created a safe visitation protocol that likely saved both patients. He treats connections between generations, not just diseases.

My 8-year-old son, Deniz, is a competitive junior freediver. During a routine sports physical, Dr. Tufan noticed a subtle inconsistency in his breath-hold recovery metrics that everyone else attributed to training fatigue. Against standard protocol, he ordered a specialized pediatric cardiopulmonary stress test. He discovered a previously undiagnosed, intermittent partial bronchial compression that only manifested under specific pressure conditions. This wasn't in any textbook—Dr. Tufan pieced it together from pediatric case studies and aerospace medicine journals. He redesigned Deniz's dive schedule and possibly prevented a deep-water incident. His curiosity is his best diagnostic tool.

We rushed our 3-year-old, Zeynep, to Acıbadem Bakırköy after she ingested an unknown quantity of my mother's cardiac medication. The ER was chaotic. Dr. Tufan, who was leaving after a long shift, stayed. He didn't just follow toxicology protocols; he used a pediatric fiber-optic scope to visually track the pill dissolution in her stomach in real-time, calculating a more precise absorption rate than the standard estimates allowed. He then conducted a video call with a toxicologist in Prague, translating the complex pharmacokinetics into clear Turkish for us. For six hours, he was a calm, translating bridge between our terror and the science that saved her.

Our newborn, Kaan, has a rare genetic mosaic syndrome. Our 'routine' follow-up with Dr. Tufan is anything but. Last visit, he arrived with a 3D-printed model of Kaan's latest cardiac echo, not for us, but for Kaan's 5-year-old sister, Elif. 'He needs to understand his own heart, and she needs to see it's just different, not broken,' he said. He then taught Elif how to listen to Kaan's heartbeat with a toy stethoscope, explaining the extra sounds as 'special drums.' He files his medical reports with Istanbul's top geneticists, but his real therapy happens on the floor of his office, building understanding one plastic model and one big-sister smile at a time.