M.D. Nalyan Shener Gulagiz

My 82-year-old father, Ahmet, fell in the bathroom at 3 AM. We rushed him to Acibadem Kadikoy, terrified he'd broken his hip. Dr. Gulagiz met us in the trauma bay with this startling calmness that immediately settled our panic. She didn't just examine him; she knelt by the gurney, held his hand, and spoke to him in a clear, slow voice he could understand despite his dementia. She ordered a specific type of CT scan I'd never heard of—a 'pan-scan trauma protocol'—which ruled out not just the hip fracture we feared, but also a silent spinal bleed the fall had caused. Her coordination with the neurology team was seamless. She explained the dual diagnosis to us using a whiteboard, drawing simple diagrams. My father is now in rehab, walking with a walker. Dr. Gulagiz didn't just treat a fall; she unraveled a cascade of hidden risks with precision and profound humanity.

Our 7-year-old daughter, Elif, swallowed a small, rare-earth magnet from a toy set, and then, minutes later, swallowed another. We knew the danger—they could pinch her intestines together. Dr. Gulagiz was like a tactical commander. While soothing our sobbing daughter, she rapidly consulted pediatric surgery and radiology on a conference call right in the room. She rejected the standard X-ray for a faster, low-dose fluoroscopy to track the magnets' real-time movement. She discovered they hadn't yet attracted to each other but were in adjacent loops of bowel—a critical window. She personally escorted Elif to the OR, briefing the surgeon en route. Post-surgery, she visited every day, not as the ER doc, but as 'the magnet detective,' bringing Elif stickers and explaining how her 'super strong tummy' was healing. She turned a terrifying emergency into a managed, confident mission.

I came in for what I thought was a severe migraine—thunderclap headache, nausea. I'm a 45-year-old otherwise healthy teacher. Dr. Gulagiz listened for 90 seconds, her demeanor shifting subtly. She interrupted my history gently but firmly: 'The timing you describe—instantaneous peak pain—is a red flag. We are ruling out a sentinel bleed, now.' She bypassed the standard headache workup and ordered an immediate CTA (CT Angiography). She stood by the monitor with the radiologist. They found it: a tiny, blister-like aneurysm on my middle cerebral artery. No rupture yet, but a ticking bomb. Her directness and swift protocol change saved me from a potentially catastrophic stroke. Her follow-up was meticulous; she connected me with a neurointerventional radiologist for coiling the same day. She didn't treat a symptom; she decoded a signal.

My husband, a construction foreman, was brought in after a high-pressure hydraulic line burst, injecting fluid into his hand. It looked like a minor cut, but Dr. Gulagiz's eyes narrowed. She told us this was a 'high-pressure injection injury'—one of the most deceptive and limb-threatening emergencies in trauma. She didn't wait for swelling or obvious signs of ischemia. She called the hand surgeon immediately, administered broad-spectrum antibiotics and tetanus right in the ER, and marked the progression of the injected material on his skin with a marker. She explained that the innocuous-looking puncture was forcing toxic fluid deep into the tissue planes, and time was fascia. Her urgent, uncompromising advocacy got him to the OR for decompression and debridement within the 'golden hour.' She saved his hand and his livelihood with her esoteric knowledge and relentless urgency.