Assoc. Prof. M.D. Yetkin Zeki Yılmaz

My 4-year-old daughter had persistent fluid in her ears affecting her speech development. Dr. Yetkin Zeki Yılmaz didn't just treat the symptom—he created a whole cartoon character voice to explain the 'ear balloons' (tubes) he would place. His approach was so gentle that she actually asked when we could visit the 'ear doctor' again. At Acibadem Atakent, the pediatric ENT suite had toys shaped like inner ears. Six months post-surgery, her vocabulary exploded. We're not just patients; we feel like we gained a doctor who speaks 'child.'

I'm a 72-year-old retired music teacher who thought my performing days were over due to severe vertigo that felt like being on a tilting ship. Dr. Yılmaz spent 45 minutes mapping my symptoms against my lifelong piano playing, suspecting a rare vestibular variant. Instead of immediate surgery, he designed a repositioning maneuver specific to my semicircular canals and taught my wife how to assist. The relief wasn't instant—it was a two-week recalibration using metronome-based exercises he devised. Now I can play Chopin without the world spinning. His method felt like composing a cure rather than writing a prescription.

Rushed to Acibadem Atakent at 2 AM after a bizarre gardening accident—a bamboo shoot fragment lodged deep in my nasal sinus. The ER called Dr. Yılmaz, who arrived in 20 minutes wearing a shirt that looked hastily buttoned. What impressed me wasn't just the emergency endoscopic removal, but how he preserved a sliver of the plant for culture 'in case of exotic fungal spores,' explaining that Istanbul gardens have unique microbiomes. His post-op care included a personalized nasal irrigation recipe using specific saline concentration. He turned a freak accident into a masterclass in preventative microbiology.

As a competitive freediver, I needed complex sinus surgery to equalize pressure below 30 meters. Most ENTs told me to stop diving. Dr. Yılmaz, however, requested my dive logs, studied pressure charts, and performed a custom functional endoscopic sinus surgery he called 'depth-adaptation modification.' The follow-up involved simulated pressure chambers at the hospital and him personally reviewing my first post-op dive data. He didn't just fix my sinuses; he engineered them for extreme environments. Now I dive deeper with less effort—my underwater photos thank him.