Economics undoubtedly plays a major role in determining the leadership of countries in the world, but it is science that puts the final point in determining world leadership. Unfortunately, as a country, we face a bitter reality at this point.
In the special index published every year by Nature Magazine on universities and scientific institutions, these institutions are ranked according to the number of scientific publications made by their academics that year. According to this index, Harvard University ranks first with 925.15 points, while Bilkent University, which publishes the most in our country, is one 68th of Harvard with 13.59 points. Unfortunately, none of Turkey’s institutions are among the top 500 institutions in the list.
At this point, we need to take a step forward. We are not only physicians but also scientists. As Turkish physicians, our success in diagnosis and treatment cannot be denied. During this pandemic period, we have seen this once again and felt proud. However, as seen in this index, there is a point where we are weak. Our lack of scientific research and publications. We usually publish in order to get an academic title and then put it aside after we have the title. However, making this a habit and giving the same importance to scientific research and publications as we give to medicine will bring us to a much superior and permanent point both individually and on a national basis. Our aim should be science for society.
One reason for the lack of sufficient publications may be patient density. But we can actually turn this into an advantage because encountering and experiencing many cases is one of the basic requirements of publishing as well as the experience of medicine. Therefore, we should definitely archive for research.
As we all know, scientists are people who observe the phenomena going on around them, try to explain them and test them. Every mistake or every exception we encounter raises new questions. Each new question becomes a subject of curiosity and therefore research. In this sense, our aim is to encourage our physicians to conduct research, to show them what they may encounter on this journey and how they can overcome them. By conducting research and publishing, revealing our scientist side as well as our physician side will not only increase our confidence in ourselves individually, but will also make our work immortal. The publication of one of us will arouse curiosity for other publications and shed light on new ones. The publication of one of us will guide another physician. As the number of publications increases, we will also contribute to carrying our country to the place it deserves.
For these reasons, the aim of our meetings this time is not to provide clinical information, discuss a technique or present a case, but to encourage science and publication. In these meetings, our physicians who are researching and publishing on arthroscopic surgery will share with us what they have experienced during the publication process, their thesis and where their curiosity has brought them. We wish that their ideas and thoughts will inspire all of us and we ask you for an idea…
As our great leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk said, the truest guide in life is science and science…
In these meetings, we aim to provide an environment of knowledge, experience and discussion by bringing up controversial issues related to arthroscopy and giving the floor to our friends who have worked on this subject. We believe that these discussions will both increase our knowledge, give a different perspective and give us new ideas to work on.
At the end of these discussions, we will try to realize these studies by forming groups with colleagues who develop new ideas. In order to provide the necessary data for these studies, the archive of our arthroscopy team consisting of thousands of cases will be shared with you.
