Our Students Will Participate in Museum Studies

Our students from the "Medical History and Ethics" Project Group, consisting of Year 3 students, visited the Burdur Archaeology Museum and the Natural History Museum as part of a technical site visit tour.

At the Burdur Archaeology Museum Exhibition Hall, they had the opportunity to see in situ the cultural and historical heritage spanning approximately 9,000 years, from 7000 BC to the present day, excavated from Hacılar, Kuruçay, and Höyücek mounds, as well as from the excavations at Boubon, Kibyra, and Sagalassos.

The Year 3 students were particularly interested in sculptures of Asclepius, the god of health in mythology, his daughter Hygia (Hygiene), the goddess of cleanliness, surgical instruments excavated from the digs, and surgical injuries depicted in gladiatorial combat scenes.

After the Exhibition Hall, our students moved to the Research Library housed within the Burdur Museum. Having received information about the old and new script Turkish works found there, our students particularly examined medical history and medical studies in the "Belleten" journal, a Turkish Historical Society publication of which all issues from the first volume are preserved and maintained.

After the Burdur Archaeology Museum, our students visited the Natural History Museum, where they had the opportunity to view and learn about the historical heritage spanning approximately 2.5 to 2 million years ago that forms the exhibition materials. Among the museum's displays of extinct terrestrial vertebrate mammals, specimens of Mammuthus meridionalis (southern elephant) attracted particular attention from our students.

 

Year 3 students who participated in the visit—Melisa Kök, Hakan İlbeği, Melin Güven, Refik Erdem Karakulak, Hamza Gavcar, Azmi Yüksel, Cemre Kotan, Efekan Özer, Taylan Palamut, Serra Beyoğlu, and Beyza Turan—stated that "they were very happy to participate in such a technical site visit during their challenging and intensive medical education, it was very exciting to see the developments in medical history from the past to the present through museum visits and the artifacts they examined, and they hoped that such activities would continue."

Dr. Lecturer Fuat İnce, the advisory faculty member of the Medical History and Ethics Project Group, noted that "they aim to reinforce the concepts taught in theoretical classes through visits to museums and archaeological sites" and said, "We thank the Burdur Museum Administration and all its staff for the hospitality they showed us."

During the discussion held with the Museum Administration as part of the technical site visit, it was agreed upon that, following the necessary permission and approval processes, our University's Medical Faculty Medical History and Ethics Project Group would conduct research and publications about the medical history artifacts in the museum inventory, prepare projects, visit excavation sites as observers, and participate in museum studies.