Why didn't I go to Cerrahpaşa?

Last weekend, there were two events held on the same day at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, where I graduated in 1969 and retired from in 2012.

On the morning of Saturday, December 14, a White Coat Ceremony was held for final-year students at the faculty's Avcılar campus. That same afternoon, a ceremony was held at Cerrahpaşa Hospital (Kocamustafapaşa) to distribute plaques to physicians who had graduated from Cerrahpaşa 25 years ago.

I did not attend either of the events to which I was invited, feeling a bit angry, but mostly sad.

The purpose of this article is to share the reasons for my behavior with you.

I was informed about the ceremony held in Avcılar on the morning of December 14 by an SMS sent by the Cerrahpaşa Dean's Office—which naturally planned the event—only 24 hours before the ceremony.

Believe me, I was more saddened than angry by this, at the very least, discourteous invitation method, and I did not go to the ceremony. As I will elaborate on later, we have a significant problem as a society regarding time/hours that I have been observing for years.

The reason I did not attend the plaque ceremony held that same afternoon is a bit more complex, but I believe this reason is also related to another very important societal problem of ours.

I will explain in some detail; I ask for your patience. I had heard about the plaque ceremony verbally two weeks prior, but I specifically wanted to know what we would be doing at what time on the day of the ceremony.

An invitation notice arrived about ten days before the ceremony. The meeting was organized by the newly established Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine Alumni Association and the Cerrahpaşa Dean's Office.

The notice was both beautifully printed and contained a historical photograph showing Atatürk leaving the Cerrahpaşa garden in his car on December 14, 1930.

However, the program flow for the meeting day, which I wanted to know as soon as possible, was still nowhere to be found. I asked again. Two days later, two separate notices arrived. One of them was the program flow. In the repeated meeting announcement, the Atatürk photograph I mentioned earlier was no longer there.

I was saddened. As far as I could guess, there was a disagreement regarding how much Atatürk should be highlighted in the organization of the plaque-giving event.

I had a few private conversations and found out. I regret to state that I was not mistaken.

We had managed to drag the love for, respect for, or lack of participation in these sentiments toward Atatürk into this matter as well.

On top of that, the program flow was as bland as could be. It is for these reasons that I did not attend Cerrahpaşa's second meeting on the December 14 Atatürk Day.

My country's relationship with time was broken yesterday, and it is broken today. I finished Moda Primary School in 1956. Throughout primary school, neither I nor any of my classmates, except for one, wore a watch on our wrists.

Our precious and late teacher Yaşar also did not wear a watch, and from time to time, he would ask the friend I mentioned about the time during class. I mentioned it years ago (Muteber Bir Nesne Yok Devlet Gibi, Hasan Yazıcı, Milliyet Publications, 1998); all the clocks in the famous Clock Section of Topkapı Palace are either gifts or war spoils.

On top of that, we have a social structure that does not particularly respect other people's time.

I had just become an associate professor. During a meeting, one of the senior faculty members wanted me to see an acquaintance of his wife. When I immediately took out my Ece agenda, which I never left my pocket in those years, and tried to give an appointment, the gentleman fumed and said, "Yesterday one, today two, have you started seeing patients by appointment already?"

Let us remember. A leading dimension of the enlightenment that forms the infrastructure of the contemporary Western civilization we have been trying to reach for about 200 years is the mechanistic philosophy movement, which likens the functioning of nature to a perfect machine where every part works in harmony within a whole.

Galileo, Kepler and Newton are among the pioneers of this movement, and Descartes and Pascal are among its leading spokesmen. For that reason, these philosophers are also called mechanistic philosophers.

The clock, which was the most advanced mechanical tool of those times, is almost a symbol of the enlightenment. You understood correctly. I am trying to say that respect for time and the clock that measures it in achieving civilization is, in the words of the famous enlightenment thinker Kant, a categorical imperative.

The other reason I did not want to attend the December 14 events of Cerrahpaşa, to which I gave my years, is the Atatürk debate I observed among those organizing the meetings.

Let me underline this.

What really saddens me is not whether or not to put an Atatürk photograph on a meeting announcement made on an Atatürk day from the beginning, but to remove this photograph from the second announcement of the same meeting by playing a trick. The root of the trick I mentioned is, I regret to state, that we are quite far from individual responsibility, which is the foundation of civilization.

Thirty years ago, at the graduation ceremony of surgical graduates, including my son, I said the following:

“The real reason why catching up with civilization is so difficult lies in the fact that the development of individual responsibility is not very easy either. Laziness and imitation are the greatest enemies of the flourishing of this responsibility. For example, trying to belittle what Kemal Atatürk brought to this country is, at the very least, a lack of judgment. However, like some people who can also describe themselves as Kemalist, dumping the solution of problems on Kemal Atatürk with great laziness is no different from a kind of laziness, just as some fanatic fundamentalists do by delegating all responsibility for what is happening around them to supernatural powers. Neither Kemal Atatürk nor the Islamic religion can be blamed for our irresponsibility and lack of virtue.”

I also ended my speech as follows:

“In summary, children, the fundamental problem of our country is that we have not been able to establish individual responsibility and the morality, justice, and law that arise from it in these lands. Recently, fundamentalism has been trying to fill this void. However, at its foundation, there is the same laziness and imitation.

Dear students, young physicians, there can be no pursuit that is as closely, and I mean very closely, related to individual responsibility and morality as the medical profession we have tried to teach you within six years. Although your course programs seem to consist solely of anatomy, physiology, and similar subjects, those programs also contain the joy of birth, the grief of death, and the unique pride and honor of being able to heal or console. No one knows the injustice of nature better than you. At the very least, you carry a very important and, believe me, very envied privilege of being close witnesses to these concepts alone. Whatever your economic and social conditions may be, wherever you are, these privileges will arouse envy, and sometimes even jealousy, around you. Because you are the ones who know and understand human beings, the individual, best. So, dear young physicians, complement this closeness you have to human beings, to the individual, both with your own individual responsibility and virtues, and with the courage to expect these responsibilities and virtues from others, and even further, to hold them accountable when necessary. Never, but never, dump what weighs heavily on your own conscience onto any person, institution, or concept.

May your path be clear, your responsibility be abundant, and your head be held high.”

(Cumhuriyet, July 14, 1994)