İHSAN DOĞRAMACI A giant and a friend

Giuseppe Benagiano

Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

the WHO European Regional Committee. I was present with the Italian Delegation when the WHO’s Director General, Dr Hiroshi Nakajima, awarded him the “Medal for Health for All”. It was on that occasion that Tomris Türmen gave me a first, rough idea of his many accomplishments.

I first became aware of who professor Doğramaci was on 15 September 1997 at the Çırağan Palace in Istanbul during the 47th Meeting of

You could say that my direct view of his life was rather limited

A single decade over more than 9. Yet – over this short opening over his long life – he made me a gift that I

shall never forget: he called me his friend!

I now know that he wanted to meet me to see whether I could become a member of the Governing Council of the International Children’s Centre he was transferring to Ankara from Paris.

Because of other commitments, I arrived late in Istanbul and when I reached the restaurant the dinner was well on its way, but – much to my surprise – Professor Doğramaci had left an empty seat next to him for me, a perfect stranger.

So, I immediately learned what kind of person he was!

The next year, as secretary general of FIGO, I had to participate in a Conference in Istanbul attended also by Professor Doğramaci who hosted a dinner in a famous restaurant and I was invited.

Although he personally told me many anecdotes about his life, to give you even a few flashes I need the help of those who knew him in his earlier days and one of them is Sir Horace Phillips the British Ambassador to Turkey from 1972 to 1977, who later joined the International Relations Department of Bilkent University, lecturing until 1997. He wrote a biography of İhsan Doğramaci and published photographs of 11 heads of State and Prime Ministers among the many, many dignitaries hosted in his house.

As a Member of the International Children’s Centre Governing Council, I had the good fortune of knowing a more intimate İhsan Doğramaci than most people ever had. I became a member of an inner circle of “special friends”; people who worked with him on the last of the many accomplishment of his long life.

THE DOĞRAMACI HOME AT BILKENT Built with his private funds and donated to the İhsan

Doğramaci Foundation

It is impossible to properly describe the incredible hospitality granted each time to all of us by Mrs. Doğramaci, which invariably included remarkable musical performances, once by the two most beautiful young cello players I have ever met – a blonde and a brunette – something, of course, that would not have gone unnoticed to an Italian eye.

Once, when both my wife and I were his guests at dinner, as a special gesture, he invited the Italian Ambassador, who not only accepted and came with his wife, but was curious to meet this Italian he had never heard of, who was such a good friend of the most famous Turkish Academic.

In 2000 I began to solicit my University to grant İhsan Doğramaci a degree of Doctor Honoris causa in Medicine and Surgery.

By law, the request needed to be approved by the Government and therefore the Rector wrote to the Minister of Education to make the necessary inquiry

Eventually, the dossier ended on the desk of the Italian Ambassador to Turkey.

His response was so enthusiastic that the Director General for Cultural affairs at the Ministry called the Rector saying: “It seems that you made the perfect choice. This man deserves the honour more than most of the people you have already honoured”.

A 88 anni il celebre pediatra Ihsan Dogramaci riceve la sua ventiseisima laurea honoris

causa in Medicina e Chirurgia

28 marzo 2003- ore 11.00

Università "La Sapienza" - Aula Magna - P.le Aldo Moro, 5 - Roma

La Prima facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia de "La Sapienza" conferirà la laurea honoris

causa al prof. Ihsan Dogramaci, classe 1915, unico firmatario ancora vivente della

costituzione dell'OMS (Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità) creata nel 1946.

Alla cerimonia interverranno il Rettore Giuseppe D'Ascenzo, il Preside della facoltà di

Medicina Luigi Frati e il prof. Giuseppe Benagiano che terrà l'elogio.

BREVE BIOGRAFIA

Ricercatore e studioso in pediatria è dottore honoris causa di 14 Università (Glasgow,

Nizza, Nebraska, Baghdad, Guayaquil, Ain Shams, Helsinki, Soka, Devlet University,

Devlet Tip University, De Montfort, Eastern Mediterranean University, Jamia Millia

Islamia) nonché di 11 Università turche tra cui Anadolu, Bogazici, Istanbul e Marmara.

Ihsan Dogramaci è stato Presidente dell'UNICEF e dell'International Pediatric Association

e Membro dell'Advisory Committe on Health Research dell'OMS. E' Membro Onorario di

numerose accademie e associazioni pediatriche nazionali ed è stato insignito di prestigiose

onorificenze quali la medaglia d'oro Health-For-All nel 1997 ed il premio per la Pace, la

Giustizia e la Tolleranza del Consiglio d'Europa nel 1998.

A Dogramaci si deve la creazione, nel 1984, dell'Università Bilkent in Ankara prima

università privata della Turchia.

Rome 20 March 2003 Sapienza University

Laurea Honoris Causa in Medicine and Surgery

The task I have today is a physically impossible one; indeed, no one could realistically hope to present İhsan Doğramaci in a few minutes. No one could, not really because he has had such a long life; rather because – at whatever age – Professor Doğramaci still looked forward to new challenges, new

goals, new accomplishments. In other words, only to briefly summarise his last work would take more than the time I have.

İhsan Doğramaci liked to call himself “a reformer”, a reformer armed with the same iron will of the founder of your Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the greatest

reformer your country ever had. Whereas Atatürk had the daunting task to initiate the global reform that made him the architect of the transformation of a decaying Ottoman Empire into a modern vigorous Republic, Doğramaci had the equally daunting task to continue and complete the reform initiated by the Father of all Turks in the fields of higher education, starting with medical education, but not stopping there.

The World Health Organisation WHO

The UN Children’s Fund UNICEF

International Children's Center

The ICC was founded in Paris in 1949 by UNICEF and the government of France. In 1999 İhsan Doğramaci saved it from dissolution and moved it to Ankara. Here the Centre continues its mission to advocate for women and children's rights, health, disaster preparedness and health management

However, before I come to all of this, let me recount his early life which started in the Ottoman Empire’s eastern part. Indeed, he was born and lived his youth in Erbil (or Arbil or Irbil), more or less half way between Kirkuk and Mosul, in the oil-producing area of what is now Northern Iraq. After attending secondary school in Beirut, the young Doğramaci entered Baghdad College of Medicine, where the curriculum studiorum was that of Edinburgh University. After three years he moved to Turkey and in 1938 received his M.D. from the University of Istanbul.

Young İhsan became interested in Paediatrics after meeting Professor Albert Eckstein, a refugee from Nazi Germany, who was the head of the Department of Paediatrics at Numune Hospital in Ankara. The period spent in Ankara was decisive for him: for the rest of his long life he would dedicate all his efforts to changing the care given to children in Turkey and later world-wide.

In spite of his decision to work in Turkey, Baghdad had one more surprise for him: in 1942, he met there and quickly married Ayser Süleyman, a member of a very prominent Turkish family. Running the danger of making her blush, I am forced to say that, whoever knows her, comes to the inescapable conclusion of the ultimate truth of the old saying: “behind every great man, stands – discreet but essential – a great woman”. Anyone who has ever met Mrs Ayser, knows what I am talking about!

Together, toward the end of World War II, they spent three years in Boston and St. Louis, where he worked as a Harvard and Washington University research fellow. There, for the first time, he saw clearly his role as that of a reformer of higher education and of the medical system of his country.

Mrs. Doğramaci's father with his four brothers. Seated in the middle is Grand Vizier Mahmud Shevket Pasha who was assassinated in 1913. Her father, Hikmet Süleyman, who served briefly as PM of Iraq in 1936-1937, is second from right.

Mrs. Doğramaci's maternal grandfather, Field Marshal Mehmet Fazil Pasha from Dagestan. He was killed in 1916 while commanding at an advanced age, an Ottoman regiment.

Leaving the United States, he and his family settled in Turkey. His career progress was rapid, but not easy: by 1954 he had passed the examination that made him eligible to become a full Professor, but not without opposition.

First creating the Ankara Child Health Society, then – after overcoming all types of “red tape” – the Ankara University Child Health Clinic and Institute. The next step was the construction of a new facility to house the Institute, which was completed in 1957 and was dedicated to its founder in 1994, becoming the “İhsan Doğramaci Children’s Hospital”.

Having established himself in the Turkish academic world, he set out to meticulously plan the reforms he had in mind:

To most, this would have been the accomplishment of a lifetime. To İhsan Doğramaci it was simply a springboard to higher accomplishments. Among all kinds of opposition, he conceived and set out to create a second Medical School in Ankara. Using his Institute as a core, he built the Hacettepe Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, which quickly became the leading medical teaching facility in the country.

Not even a new Faculty was enough for a man like İhsan Doğramaci. His idea was to reform, not only the teaching of medicine, but higher education as a whole. For this reason, he lobbied the National Assembly to pass legislation establishing a new University: Hacettepe University, just next door to

Ankara University.

Not an easy accomplishment.

It goes without saying that Doğramaci was appointed Rector of the new University.

The Turkish Constitution mandated that Hacettepe University had to be a public one, something that limited Doğramaci’s ability to change, modernize and improve. Learning from his experience, he became President of the Council for Higher Education convinced that universities should be managed individually in their own way, their administration and teaching programmes not bound to one single format.

So – as he himself recounted to me one evening over dinner – he decided that … the Constitution had to be amended and proceeded to convince the makers of the 1982 Constitution to do so, thus enabling him to build a University that truly fulfilled his dreams. While bureaucracy and legislative steps were taking their course, Doğramaci, without doubting for a minute the final outcome, went to work to push this last step in his very own cultural revolution: in 1967 he purchased the land upon which one day to build his dream university, using money from the Trust Fund he and his wife had created.

His dream of a totally new and different teaching environment became a reality less than 20 years later, in 1986, when Bilkent University formally opened. It was the first non-profit «foundation with a University» and Doğramaci became its first Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Today, some 30 years later, Bilkent has become, as you all know, a leading academic institution in Turkey, a model of excellence in teaching and learning.

I must finish; but I cannot do so without going back to the role that İhsan Doğramaci played in the international arena: for many years he was the only surviving signatory of the Constitution of the World Health Organization, which was signed in 1946. In 1959, he became a member of UNICEF Executive Board, serving twice as its President. In 1968 he was elected President of the International Paediatric Association, continuing as Executive Director and finally as Honorary Life President.

In 1970 he became a Member of the International Children’s Centre in Paris, and – when the continuing activities of the Centre were in jeopardy – he decided to move it to Ankara where he built a dedicated new facility for it. The ICC has a particular significance for me, because it is through my election to its Governing Council that I met İhsan Doğramaci, learned of his many and great accomplishments and decided to ask our University to reward his work by granting him the “Laurea Honoris causa”.

Moving ICC from Paris to Ankara

Ensuring his legacy among the world’s children

He conceived ICC as “a global advocate for human rights, the rights of children and women, and for reproductive rights”. He was a realist and knew the daunting task he had set for the Centre; but he was convinced that to talk about health today is to talk about development, about the ability of human societies to change and evolve. He was also an optimist and was convinced that our world is quickly discovering that better health drives development. He hoped that the world would understand that good health must be perceived as an investment, something that will drive economic, social and political development

The best way to talk about ICC is to use his own words: He wanted ICC “to be a catalyst, a pioneer in health promotion, in operation research and in national capacity building.”

He was aware that the major obstacle to attaining the goal defined in the Alma Ata Declaration of “Health for All” is the persistence of poverty. In declaring war on poverty, he set a goal for ICC: “reducing the burden of excess disease and higher mortality suffered by the poor”.

He wanted ICC to be involved from the beginning in implementing the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and asked everyone to oversee the implementation of this Convention worldwide.

We know what this means: just south of your borders thousands of children are denied even the right to life. Millions are suffering as victims of a cruel civil war. They have been displaced and even used as young combatants and human shields.

I know that if Professor Doğramaci had been here he would have encouraged each one of us to feel that these children are “our children”; that we have a strict obligation to act, to do whatever we can to improve their present life and even more to ensure for them a better future.

The International New York Times, March 19, 2014 A Syrian family taking shelter in Istanbul

I therefore finish this flashing portrait of Hocabey with the request I am sure he would have made to all of you: let’s help ICC and UNICEF to help every child denied her/his innocence and even her/his right to life and help every woman reach substantial equality with men in every field.

For my part I am proud to have been called a friend by Professor and Mrs Doğramaci and honoured to have been given the task to retrace his legacy.

Death does not exist: We die when we are forgotten!

and

we will make sure that you, dear İhsan Doğramaci, precious friend, will not be forgotten.

Thank you all for your patience in listening to me and thank you, Mr President, dear Ali, for giving me this unique opportunity.