M.D. Ridvan Acar

My 8-year-old son fell from his bicycle in the park, hitting his head on the pavement. By the time we reached Acibadem, he was disoriented and vomiting. The panic was overwhelming. Dr. Ridvan Acar met us at the entrance with a calm, focused energy that immediately cut through the chaos. He didn't just examine my son; he explained each step to him in a gentle, almost playful way, calling him 'little astronaut' and checking his 'helmet log.' His swift assessment ruled out a serious intracranial bleed but identified a concerning concussion. He coordinated with pediatric neurology seamlessly. What stayed with me was how he handed my son a sticker after the CT scan, saying, 'Brave explorers get rewards.' It wasn't just clinical expertise; it was profound, child-centered compassion during our worst moment.

As a 72-year-old with a complex cardiac history, what I thought was severe indigestion at 3 AM turned into crushing chest pain. My wife called an ambulance. In the ER, the young doctor on duty seemed unsure. Then Dr. Acar arrived, his presence like a switch being flipped. He took one look at the ECG, listened to my chest for barely ten seconds, and declared, 'This is not your heart, sir. This is a gallbladder rebellion.' He ordered specific enzymes and an urgent ultrasound, overriding the initial cardiac protocol. He was right—a gangrenous gallbladder. He managed my blood thinners peri-operatively with precision I've never seen, consulting my cardiologist in Ankara via video call at that hour. He treated me not as a fragile elderly patient, but as a person whose existing life needed intricate, respectful navigation. He saved me from an unnecessary cardiac cath and solved the real problem.

I'm a professional rock climber. A fall during a training session resulted in a grotesque, open fracture of my tibia and fibula—bone was visible. The trauma team was excellent, but Dr. Acar's approach was different. He talked to me about pressure holds and crimps while they stabilized me, connecting with my world to keep me calm. In surgery, he didn't just fix the bone; he designed the approach with my future return to climbing in mind, consulting a sports orthopedist about plate placement and tendon clearance. His post-op explanation used climbing analogies: 'The bone is like a failed cam placement; we're setting a new solid anchor.' His follow-up has been aggressively proactive, focused on functional recovery, not just healing. He sees me as an athlete, not just a trauma case. My rehab is ahead of schedule because he understood the assignment was to get me back on the wall.

My husband, a diabetic, developed a severe, rapidly spreading soft tissue infection in his foot after a minor cut. It was a weekend, and our GP was unavailable. The redness was climbing his leg. At Acibadem ER, we were just another case until Dr. Acar reviewed the file. He knelt, examined the foot without gloves initially to gauge temperature differentials—a startling but insightful move—then immediately declared a surgical emergency. He took personal responsibility, bundling us from ER to OR within 90 minutes, performing a radical debridement himself. Post-op, he explained the microbiology of necrotizing fasciitis with drawings on a napkin. But more than that, he addressed my husband's shame about his diabetes management with zero judgment, framing it as 'a chronic condition that sometimes wins a battle.' His blend of decisive action, deep explanatory care, and psychological sensitivity turned a potential catastrophe into a managed recovery. We felt championed.