Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of south-western Turkey. It is Turkey’s biggest international sea resort, located on the Turkish Riviera.
In 2012, Antalya became the third most visited city in the world by number of international arrivals, ranking behind Paris and London, respectively. Antalya previously ranked fourth in the world in 2010 and 2011, with over 10.5 million visitors in 2011.
With its hotels, bars, clubs, restaurants, and shopping malls, it has been restored to retain much of its historical character; its restoration has won the Golden Apple Tourism Prize. Cumhuriyet Square, the main square of the city, is the location for temporary open air exhibitions and performances.
Antalya Airport has two international terminals and one domestic terminal. In 2007, its number of passengers on international flights surpassed the total number at Istanbul Ataturk Airport and Sabiha Gökçen International Airport for the first time, officially earning the title of “the capital of Turkish tourism”.
A beautiful city with a rich culture, filled with pleasant personalities is how I describe Antalya. My ‘date’ for this week is one of such pleasant personalities. I must confess the first time I met him, it was at a health conference and for some minutes, I kept wondering what a movie maker was doing at the event. He reminded me of Antonio Banderas with the way he packed his hair to the back. I met my first shocker when we exchanged pleasantries and in the course of the conversation, he told me he was a medical doctor…what!! I exclaimed and “Yeah, I get that expression a lot, I look like a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people, most of what they say though has nothing to do with the sciences funny enough.” Was his response.
Ferhat Kayan is a medical doctor and CEO of Aspendos Hospiıal. Aspendos hospital was founded eight years ago to provide a wide range of medical services for health tourism, and also for the locals living nearby. The hospital has a very good organization with the hotels in Antalya, Belek area which is a world-famous touristic resort. Recently, they established sportsmen’s health center since Belek area welcomes football teams and golfers. Apart from this, they also provide medical assistance for the SPA centers, anti-aging and detox programs for the hotels by cooperating with them.
Ferhat grew up in a middle income, peaceful and loving family. He tells me. “I left from my family for boarding school when I was twelve years old. In my opinion if it is possible, every child should have the boarding school experience, it was so much fun and also a courage booster, it helped me stand firm on decision making and increased my self confidence.” He said
Ferhat’s decision to study medicine started from his days in the primary school. According to him “I decided to study medicine and to be a doctor when I was a primary school student. I think that it was a decision given during my childhood without searching the details of studying medicine. But now I am very happy to be a doctor at this final point.” He admitted.
Medicine is obviously metamorphosing, what obtains today is quite different from what it used to be especially with the advent of technology. In Ferhat’s view, “In recent years, there have been giant developments in medical science. We had very important results through both the medical searches on cells and developments in technological fields of medicine. As these results enable us on one hand to prolong the life expectancy but on the other hand, there is increase in the risk of facing many diseases. In other words, unfortunately, some of these developments caused some problems to arise. Consequently, this added extra financial medical treatment expenditure to the budgets of those countries. That’s why it is vital that people take medical precautions against illnesses so they don’t arise and also know what to do if they do arise.” He said
Ferhat tells me his biggest challenge in practice is the lack of communication. With the level of advancement Turkey is experiencing in terms of medical tourism, communication between patient and doctor is indeed very vital. Hear him share more on this “The biggest problem is the lack of communication between the doctor and patient, the doctor and personnel, medical staff and patient; that is, problems of not being able to understand each other. To solve this problem, training on communication is essential. If we here in turkey are responsive to this call for instance, it will boost stability and make it a lot easier and hasten the process.” He said
Following closely near India, Turkey is a country that has benefited a lot from medical tourism but Ferhat believes a lot more can be done. According to him, “Turkey occupies an important place among the countries which practice health tourism owing to having health and touristic facilities besides her historical and enchanting natural beauties. However, Turkey is not yet at the point it deserves. Day by day, every positive step to reach her aim of being on top is made by both government and private sectors.”
“Considering health tourism which covers medical tourism, thermal tourism, spa wellness tourism among others, more than 650,000 tourists have visited Turkey for health problems.” he concluded
There is indeed more to health tourism than meets the eyes, it also includes exercise, healthy eating among others. “Health, as defined by the World Health Organisation, is total well- being in terms of spiritual, mental and physical states, that is why we should not only remember the treatment of an existing illness through medical or operational ways. It becomes very vital to continually orientate people on ways of protecting themselves against any illness; this should be the priority of any doctor.”
“For this purpose, we are planning to include generic check up, anti aging check up, wellness and thermal applications in our future projects within the health tourism concept. We invite visitors from outside Turkey to our medical facilities located in an environment full of enchanting natural beauties, to protect their health with our above mentioned approaches. In my opinion, this approach is as important as cardiac by-pass or joint prosthesis or plastic surgery. For this reason, we give importance to the preventive medicine approach in addition to all surgical activities that we perform in our hospital.” Ferhat revealed.
When he told me his age, I was quite shocked (don’t ask me, I am not telling you)…I was more impressed at his passion for exercise and he told me why “Towards the end of last year, I weighed a 100 kg but now I weigh 82. Let me share with you three important things that I observed while checking my weight. Firstly, at this point, healthy eating and keeping away from sugar and carbohydrates helps a lot. Secondly, following regular exercising programme, and thirdly, not eating anything after 8 p.m. At the end I noticed that all these factors are very important. Besides these, it is also essential that there be some applications to lose weight. I succeeded losing weight by going to an expert centre X-Form Beauty Centre and I am placed on various exercise routines, I feel very bubbly and fresh”
By: KEMI AJUMOBI
