He is the senior SMS of the Cardiology-Intensive Group, with a role to facilitate learning, manage projects, and inspire the groupmates to achieve a level of excellence. His biggest challenge is to keep himself from taking on even more students because he simply loves the role he has. In December, Caner Turan was named Science Methodology Supervisor of the Month.
Caner Turan got involved with translational medicine by chance, and joined the program immediately. “It all started with an email about a webinar in the year CTM joined Semmelweis University. The core vision and mission of the centre immediately resonated with me. As a PhD student, I joined Zsolt Molnár's research team in 2021. The following year I became an SMS, and currently, I'm a senior SMS.” Dr. Turan is attracted to ‘big pictures’, and he believes in the importance of multidisciplinary research. He thinks intensive care medicine has to be a holistic approach to patient care, consisting of pathology, physiology, pharmacology, psychology, physiotherapy, and dietetics. It's a grand engine with several gears, only as strong as its weakest link.
Dr. Turan’s research so far has been about approaching patient care from several perspectives, and identifying those questions that might help bridge the gap between theory and practice. He loves doing medical work and research simultaneously, it's a constant challenge for him that he welcomes with an open mind. “Every single instance of approach to patient care requires one to ask and answer a multitude of questions. So, in my opinion, one must consider medical practice and research as one: neither can work without the other. This doesn’t mean that I'm flawless at both, it's a sort of lifelong learning.” Ironically, he is not all that much interested in the research’s outcomes. He says it's a hard reality to cope with, especially when the stakes are so high as in intensive care medicine. In that area, doctors need to focus on the individual patient, not minor statistical differences.
As the senior SMS of the Cardiology-Intensive Group, Dr. Turan’s role is to facilitate learning, manage projects, be available to the research teams 24/7, motivate everyone to keep moving forward, and inspire his groupmates to achieve a level of excellence because he knows they can. His biggest challenge is to keep himself from taking on even more students, because he simply loves the role he has.
(Emese Szabó)