About

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hasan ERSÖZ

He was born in Diyarbakır in 1985 to a surgeon father and an English teacher mother. His father, Dr. Ekrem Ersöz, was a urology specialist who served as chief physician at Diyarbakır State Hospital for many years. It must have been a very good example for him because our teacher Hasan had set his mind on not only becoming a doctor but also a surgeon since his childhood. After completing primary and secondary school in Diyarbakır, he passed the science high school exams and finished high school at Çanakkale Science High School in his mother’s hometown.

Afterwards, due to his family’s special situation, he returned to his hometown after being accepted to Dicle University Faculty of Medicine with a score that would allow him to enter Hacettepe Medical School in the university entrance exam. The last year of his 6-year medical education coincided with the period when his father started experiencing lung disease. For this reason, he was interested in becoming a thoracic surgeon with an idealistic approach and being the best in this field. Despite getting high scores in the first TUS exam, he chose this department that was generally chosen by his colleagues who got low scores, and he went to Izmir, Dokuz Eylül University, the city where he would continue his life.

Who could have guessed that in addition to the three thoracic surgery clinics that existed in Izmir at that time, he would later establish a fourth clinic fully equipped and become the Head of a Department that would change the fate of Izmir in this regard?

After a successful 5-year assistantship, he completed his compulsory service at Tepecik Training and Research Hospital, again in Izmir, due to the assistantship status of his wife, who was also a physician. Those who know Izmir know that; while Suat Seren Chest Diseases Hospital is right across from Tepecik Hospital, no one goes to Tepecik Hospital for chest diseases. Only patients who are very risky to operate on, patients with additional diseases at an advanced age, started coming to Hasan Hoca and said, “Let’s ask across the street” when they were told that they could not be operated on at Suat Seren.

Hasan ERSÖZ, who had his first specialization experience in such an environment, bravely undertook the risks and difficulties of these patients and operated on them without turning any of them down. The beautiful results began to attract attention. He did not remain indifferent when the Dean of Katip Çelebi University at that time asked him, “Would you like to do a much more comprehensive clinic establishment job at Atatürk Training and Research Hospital than the one you have accomplished in one and a half years at this hospital?” Because this department had never been established at Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, the most established hospital in Izmir, and it was a great deficiency for such an important hospital. It was not easy for them to find a professor who would undertake this burden and succeed in this job. Dr. ERSÖZ, who was passionate about his job and loved excitement, accepted this difficult task without blinking.

After her husband’s term in Izmir was completed and her transfer to Katip Çelebi University was delayed due to bureaucracy, she returned to Izmir again after a short-term experience at Manisa State Hospital, this time with the title of “Assistant Professor” and the title of “Head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery – Founding Faculty Member”.

She knew how difficult her job was when she started her new position. Because the clinic didn’t even have a pair of scissors. She didn’t even have a secretary to do the correspondence necessary for the establishment of the clinic. Everyone around her was approaching her with statements like “Why did you go to this department? There is no previous surgery, no patient records, no database… How are you going to publish in this state? How are you going to become an associate professor?” However, she never took refuge behind excuses. She worked hard. She had to explain her projects and plans to every new administration at the university and hospital, where the head physician, dean and rectors were constantly changing due to the winds blowing from bureaucracy. Because every new administration approached her with suspicion and distrust because she became the head of the department at a young age. However, with his persistent diligence and the services he produced, he managed to gain the trust of each administration.

First, he rolled up his sleeves by learning the EBYS system, where he would do correspondence. On the one hand, he was trying to persuade the administrations to fix all the deficiencies of the clinic, he was handling the correspondence and bureaucratic work, on the other hand, he was performing surgeries by putting his patients in beds in other wards in the clinic that did not have a service, and on the other hand, he was trying to complete his publications by conducting animal experiments in the clinic that did not have a database in order to become an associate professor. While doing all these, he was also teaching the Thoracic Surgery Courses of the students of Katip Çelebi University Faculty of Medicine on his own.

Moreover, he did not hinder his own development in this intense environment. In January 2019, he went to Shanghai, China, to Dr. Diego Gonzales Rivas, the pioneer physician of closed lung surgery. Due to his close friendship with him, he learned all the technical secrets of the job from Diego.

Dr. Ersöz and his close friend Dr. Gonzales Rivas

When he returned, everyone told him that he should perform 50 surgeries under the guidance of a mentor. However, the professor who was supposed to mentor him received an offer from the United States and moved there. This did not discourage him. He continued on his own without a mentor and began performing these surgeries successfully, without complications. In fact, he reached the mentioned number of 50 cases entirely on his own in a very short time. Although he was invited to give a talk at a symposium on the topic “How I Succeeded Without a Mentor,” he declined the offer, fearing the reaction of the professional community.

His research publications, mostly based on animal experiments, were so successful that he received support from TÜBİTAK projects and had his work published in high-quality international journals—including those belonging to the Oxford University Library (where even publishing a single article is a great prestige), as well as journals from Japan and other leading scientific countries. These publications earned him a high number of citations and numerous letters of praise.

In 2020, at the age of just 35, he earned the title of “Associate Professor.” This, however, was not surprising to him. After all, this was a physician who had become a “Doctor” at the age of 23, a “Specialist” at 28, an “Assistant Professor” at 31, and, again at 31, the “Head of Department and Chief of Clinic.” His special interest was in pectus deformities (chest wall deformities). In 2020, he organized an international symposium on the subject, bringing together renowned doctors from all over Turkey as well as from countries such as Italy, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to his clinic. He performed live surgeries and trained these doctors.

At the end of his challenging 6.5-year journey at İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University, the clinic—once lacking even basic surgical scissors—had transformed into a fully equipped unit with its own ward and complete staff. It had become accredited by the Medical Specialization Board to provide thoracic surgery residency training and had its own residents. The clinic now had 2 Associate Professors, 1 Assistant Professor, 2 Specialist Doctors, and 2 Resident Doctors. It had become one of only two centers in the Aegean Region performing surgery for pectus deformities, the only place offering non-surgical treatment for them, a center where video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) was performed, İzmir’s fourth thoracic surgery clinic, one of the rare places where the complex “carinal sleeve pneumonectomy” procedure was carried out, the fifth center in the world to repair a bronchopleural fistula using an ASD occluder device, the fifth in the world to perform pectus deformity surgery with a cross-bar technique, and the second in the world to perform pectus repair using four bars. In all these surgeries, his signature was present.

Eventually, the well-known challenges of practicing medicine in state hospitals in recent years—bureaucratic hurdles and the politics of academic life—led him to realize that these struggles outside his profession were draining his energy. He decided to open his own private clinic, dedicating all his focus and effort to his profession and patients. Perhaps, having served as the head of a department in Turkey’s third-largest city at the age of just 31, and having achieved success in every aspect of academia, he simply sought a new excitement in a different path. With his bold character, without hesitation, he resigned from the İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Thoracic Surgery—a department he had founded and led for 6.5 years, despite being only 37 years old—and began practicing at his own private clinic in October 2022.

He is married and a father of two.