Cerrahpaşa’s lost libraries

If we count the 2-3 years when I was allowed to see patients in that tiny room—after hanging up a somewhat carelessly written sign for the Rheumatology Clinic on the door of my esteemed and late mentor Prof. Orhan Ersanlı’s office, and using it when he wasn't there—the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine Division of Rheumatology was founded exactly half a century ago.  

A week ago, the phone rang. The caller was a young, hardworking, and valuable colleague currently working there. “Professor, an envelope arrived for you from Japan a couple of days ago, and inside was a journal published in English by the Japanese. How should I forward it to you?” I replied, “Do me a favor and take a look at the journal first. My Japanese colleagues, especially those interested in Behçet’s disease, do this from time to time. If they have an article on Behçet’s in the journal, they send it to me because they know my interest. Take a look. If there is something like that, send it to me; if not, or if you can't decide, just put it in our rheumatology library.” A brief silence… “Professor, we no longer have such a library in our clinic.” 

It was about forty years ago. Right next to the rheumatology clinic, we had turned a room roughly 40 m2 in size into a library/meeting room.  The first things we put in the library were the back issues of the famous New England Journal of Medicine, which I had been reading regularly every week since 1970 but could no longer find space for at home. I must confess, while moving these to the library, I had an ulterior motive of encouraging my young residents on the path of science by saying, “Look, I have been following this famous journal since my first years as a resident; look there—open it, read it, you will see how I ruthlessly criticized an article published in this famous journal in my third year of residency with a letter of my own published in the same journal!” Another very important function of the library room was that it was the place where the weekly meetings of the Behçet’s Disease Clinic, which we established simultaneously with the Cerrahpaşa Rheumatology Division, were held. 

Behçet’s disease is a condition that can follow both a very mild and a very severe course. In addition to sores in the mouth and genital organs, acne on the skin, and joint pain, it can cause disease across a very wide spectrum, ranging from eye involvement that leads to blindness if left untreated, to severe nervous system involvement, inflammatory bowel disease, and potentially fatal lung hemorrhages. For this reason, in the clinic we established, we, as internal medicine specialists, would often see patients in the mornings with a colleague from the dermatology clinic, meticulously fill out their files, and then refer our patients to the ophthalmology, and sometimes neurology or digestive system diseases clinics. In the afternoon, colleagues from the various sub-branches I just mentioned would gather in our now-lost small library to decide what treatment to apply to our patients. 

The doctors of this Behçet’s Disease Clinic, whose working arrangements I have briefly described, have both healed thousands of patients over the years and, through their scientific work, have definitely made Behçet’s disease a less frightening condition. Let me give just one example. Half a century ago, when a 20-year-old male (the disease follows a significantly milder course in women for reasons we still do not fully understand) contracted Behçet’s disease, the probability of eventually going blind was around 80%. Today, this rate has dropped to 10% and continues to fall.  

I will continue by suppressing my anger and trying not to be emotional. After receiving the news of the demise of our library—which I later learned had apparently happened along with the journals and books inside—it immediately came to my mind. What had happened to the library of the Department of Internal Medicine, which I chaired for about nine years? I immediately called the current chair. “Professor, that was also closed 4-5 years ago. Let me also say this. You know that Japanese journal sent in your name? I found it left at the top of the stairs. I gave it to the rheumatology resident saying, ‘Send this to Professor Hasan.’” 

My heart sank.  Okay, the library of my old clinic, which was one of the largest and most established internal medicine departments in our country, was gone, but did Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine have a library as a faculty? I called the Dean’s office. Believe me, they said they would look into it and get back to me. They haven't reported back yet, but in the meantime, I learned something. It turns out they turned a small part of one of the old classrooms into a library and there are some books on the walls. But there are no tables or chairs. 

The newspapers wrote about it recently. According to a study, our country ranked 86th in reading books.  I say this with shame, I am not surprised at all. Oh, let me add, if you try to blame our distance from books on foreign powers, I will politely scratch your forehead in disbelief!