Today at 15:59
Regina is checking on a patient after surgery. She is training to become an anesthetist. Having graduated from the National Medical University in Kyiv, she is now doing an internship at a clinic in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey.
“We start at 8:30 and at 9 we already have operations in 10 operating rooms simultaneously. I learned to do intubation. It’s the most basic procedure that every anesthetist knows how to do. In Ukraine, I tried doing it on a simulator — the dummies — and here I did it to actual patients numerous time. And I’m proud that I got quite good at it,” an intern, Regina Abdurakhmanova said.
Regina also learned to work with the Turkish computer database and got a grasp of the country’s insurance-based healthcare system. This kind of experience will come in handy for her future work in Ukrainian healthcare.
“In terms of the healthcare system, there is a lot to learn. In Ukraine healthcare is undergoing reforms, everything’s changing. And we see how everything functions here. Here they have healthcare insurance and it’s very good because their system allows providing every patient with better conditions,” she said.
This clinic working in cooperation with the Afyonkarahisar University of Medical Sciences has been providing internships for distinguished medical graduates from Ukraine for more than 2 years. They are required to speak Turkish or English.
“Our interns choose for themselves the department in which to work. For one month they work at the clinic with our doctors. This is volunteer work aimed at further developing the skills they already have,” professor M.D., cardiology, Afyon Kocatepe University Ersel Onrat said.
“We believe that, as medicine develops, it is our duty to share our knowledge with students from other countries. One of our goals is to help everyone interested in getting experience and improving their knowledge, to then put it to use in their country of origin,” rector of the Afyon Kocatepe University, Nurullah Okumus said.
In recent years, six Ukrainian medical graduates underwent internships in Afyonkarahisar. All of them are now working in Ukraine.
