A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE İSTANBUL UNIVERSITY İSTANBUL FACULTY OF MEDICINE

Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine was the only medical faculty in Türkiye until the Ankara University, Faculty of Medicine was established in 1945 under Law No. 4761. Therefore, the history of medical education in Turkiye was part of the Istanbul Medical Faculty until the establishment of this second medical school. After the conquest of Istanbul, medical education was established at the Fatih Darüşşifa in Istanbul and continued to develop, being provided in institutions that opened and closed over time. This institution has undergone reforms since the establishment of Tıphane-i Âmire in 1827, which finally led to the institutionalisation of the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine. Physicians from Austria and Germany made significant contributions to the modernisation of education at this medical school during the Ottoman and Republican periods. The Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine has supported the development of new medical faculties established in Türkiye by providing the new institutions with faculty members. Based on 2023 data, among the 128 medical faculties established in Türkiye, either by the state or private enterprise, the Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine has a prestigious place in Türkiye, as it was the first medical school and has always been an innovative and guiding medical institution. The school has graduates who have made significant contributions to medicine. Examples include Hulusi Behçet (1889- 1948), the discoverer of Behçet’s Disease, who graduated from the Istanbul School of Medicine in 1910, and Aziz Sancar (1946-), who graduated from the Istanbul School of Medicine in 1969 and shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2015.