I am the first child of a family in which the mother and father were university graduates, and they were keen to answer curious questions of a young child with a sense of libertarianism.

 

Apart from a few physical elements - with which I dealt with when I grew up - I feel very lucky about my factory settings!

It became evident where life would lead me, when my irresistible healing instincts kicked in for our next-door neighbor's mother. She was old and no longer very energetic. Perhaps, the seeds that determined my future were planted back then? All I could do was to heal her was to wipe with a handkerchief soaked in cologne ..

Physics, math, and biology were my favorite subjects; These were the courses where I could find the most satisfying answers to my questions as well as my enquiries about nature. I also loved my English lessons; If nobody in the class would know the answer to a question, my teacher would ask me to tell the class, which was a heavy responsibility at that age. My teacher would let me volunteer to sing songs in counselling lessons, I used to raise my finger and sing songs nobody knew, very loudly from memory.

As a girl growing up in Adana, Turkey my dream was to attend medical school in the capital city and become a doctor. I was a child who loved being outdoors more than anything else. I would go cycling with friends and climb trees all the time. I passed the university entrance exam thanks to my mother's disciplined nature. If it wasn’t for her, probably I wouldn't have gone back home from the streets.

I spent my university years Sıhhiye, Ankara. My dormitory was in the Kızılay neighborhood. I stayed in the guesthouse of the State Hydraulics Works Directorate. I was a regular at the study hall. It was commonly believed that when I came back from nights out with my fun-loving classmates, I always studied until the morning, and some of these common beliefs were true. I tried to be the messiest, yet most harmonious roommate in our small four-person rooms. I collected millions of memories, I grew up and developed my ideologies. I laughed a lot, cried a lot, fell in love; I lost myself and re-found myself. Then I moved to a house to live alone and started becoming a confident strong woman.

I had acne problems since I was little and they made me suffer quite a bit. I tried to find a solution during my medical school days, but I couldn't get rid of them completely, the scars remained. I attributed everything that went wrong in my social life to acne, so I decided to specialize in dermatology. As a matter of fact, I solved my acne problem during the first years of my dermatology assistantship by prescribing myself medication and removing my scars with peeling. Back then technology was not as advanced. It took me years to get over the scars and regain my self-confidence. Now I am very experienced in this topic. I am utilizing everything that I have experienced and tried on myself in this process. The beautiful irony here is the fact that my achievements during a process which made me very sad and which was a millstone on my neck, are now making many people happy.

During the final year of my dermatology assistantship, a small blemish appeared in the middle of my cheek and then grew slightly larger. I applied all the formulas, combination treatments, enzymatic peels I knew about blemishes. During that same summer, on the morning of the first day of my holiday, I applied sunscreen and went outside. Two huge skin blemishes shaped like butterfly wings appeared on both of my cheeks. As soon as I looked in the mirror, I knew that the nasty blemishes were what we refer to as melasma. At that time, I was preparing a comparative thesis on lasers. I had learned that the most successful treatment for melasma was Q switched Nd:YAG laser, in the publications I had read.  I located one and I started the treatment. A slight reduction was observed, but it didn’t heal completely.  During my compulsory service (as a physician living away from Istanbul) every time I came to Istanbul, I went to receive this treatment. The blemish diminished but it was not completely gone. In the last month of my compulsory service, I started to work in İstanbul, in a clinic which had the same laser. So I took an oath to excel in using this laser. I performed several dosing trials on myself. I managed to minimize my skin blemishes in the first year. My second biggest professional passion was skin blemish treatment. This process was followed by lip filling and under eye filling applications. So, I learned by experience that you can become a professor of something if you are suffering from it.

I always worked as a tech-savvy physician obsessed with FDA approval at the institutions I was employed. As a forty-year-old woman who is also fond of her freedom and lives with the purpose of fulfilling her dreams, I recently decided to establish a practice of my own. Currently I am dealing with interior design, licensing and regulatory approvals and am getting experienced about and the workings of my country’s regulatory affairs and the “kitchen” of the business world. I am growing and becoming a more conscious person with the teachings of the surprise developments this process brings with it. In fact, to encourage other young colleagues I plan to convey everything I learned during this process with a presentation during a congress. I am mature enough to know that one shouldn’t spend their life alone, so my goal is to establish a home of education, where I will transfer all my knowledge and I will continue to give trainings until I find comrades like myself.

I reserved my article of this issue to share my excitement with you.

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