Patient Experience
My 82-year-old mother had completely lost her sense of smell for three years and had given up hope. Other doctors dismissed it as 'just aging.' Prof. Dr. Turhan San actually listened to her detailed history about a minor fall she'd had before it started. He ordered a specific type of sinus CT others hadn't, discovered a tiny bone fragment pressing on a nerve, and performed an endoscopic procedure. The morning after surgery, she cried smelling coffee for the first time since 2020. He didn't just treat a symptom; he restored a fundamental joy of life. His patience with her slow speech and his clear diagrams explaining the procedure to our family were exceptional.
Our 5-year-old son had recurring tonsillitis every month like clockwork, missing kindergarten constantly. We were terrified of surgery. Dr. San's approach was completely different, he spent the first consultation just playing with our son with a toy otoscope, building trust. He proposed a novel (to us) protocol: removing the tonsils but preserving a specific mucosal layer to reduce pain and bleeding risk. The surgery at Medical Park Göztepe was smooth, but what stunned us was the follow-up. He gave us his personal number for 'panic calls,' and when our son had a minor scare at 10 PM, Dr. San answered immediately, video-called us, and calmly talked us through what was normal. Our son now calls him 'Mister Ear Doctor' and isn't afraid of doctors anymore.
I'm a 40-year-old teacher and came in for what I thought was a routine checkup for persistent ear fullness after a flight. Dr. San examined me and his demeanor shifted subtly, he became intensely focused. He found a minuscule, nearly invisible vascular abnormality behind my eardrum that everyone else had missed. He calmly but urgently explained it was a glomus tympanicum tumor, a slow-growing but potentially serious issue. He coordinated a same-day MRI and assembled a team including an interventional radiologist within hours. The precision of the subsequent embolization and surgery was breathtaking. He framed it not as a catastrophe, but as a 'mechanical problem' we caught early and could fix. He turned a routine visit into a life-saving intervention with zero panic.
I was a tourist from Norway with sudden, violent vertigo and vomiting in my Istanbul hotel, a total emergency. The hotel doctor called Dr. San, who met me at the Medical Park Göztepe ER at 11 PM. I couldn't even open my eyes without the room spinning. While others might have jumped to medications, he performed the Epley maneuver right there in the ER bed, with gentle but firm head movements. The spinning stopped in minutes. It was a crystal lodged in my ear canal. He then taught my travel partner how to do a simplified version if it recurred during our flight home. He refused any payment for the emergency call, saying 'Vertigo doesn't check clinic hours.' His combination of instant diagnostic skill, hands-on treatment, and profound humanity turned a travel nightmare into a story of incredible kindness.