Journal of - International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

Gülkızılca YÜRÜR
The American Hospital in Gaziantep, The History of the Connected Medical
School and Nursing School and Their Effects on Their Enviroment
In 1922, the War of Independance in Anatolia came to
a succesful end. After the occupation forces were pulled
vack and a secular Turkish state was established in October
1923, all kinds of religious activity, service and the use of
religious symbols were forbidden in the American Hospital
(12). The Christian populations of Antep followed the
withdrawing French Army, migrating especially towards
Syria. Under these circumstances, the patients seeking the
services of the American hospital were mainly consisting of
Muslim populations. For the first time in the history of the
Hospital, between December 1921-July 1922, the number
of the Muslim patients exceeded the number of the Christian
ones. By 1923, 96% of the patients we Muslims (7)
The Nursing School
The sources trace the beginnings of the nursing education
in the Ottoman Empire to the course for medical
attendants, established by Besim Omer Pasa in Kadirga in
1911, inspired by the Red Cross Conference the Paşa attended
in Washington in 1907 (21). Mistakenly, the first
Nursing School in Turkey is cited to be the one established
in the Amiral Bristol American Hospital in Istanbul in
1920 (22). However, the first nursing school of the American
School in Antep was founded officially already in 1912.
The director of the school was head nurse Alice Bewer (12).
After 1914, with the increasing military use of the hospital,
this school most probably closed up, after giving its first
graduates.
In Brian Johnson’s book on the history of the Antep
American hospital, it is stated that the graduates of this
school served in Ottoman military hospitals during I.
World War. One of the graduates even became the director
of the Red Crescent Hospital in Antep. Johnson states
that, due to the improvements this nurse achieved in the
conditions of therapy and hygiene, the Ottoman officials in
due course appointed her as an administrator to six other
military hospitals (12).
After the 1930’s, the number of native doctors in Turkey
increased in high speed. In 1958, Dr. Dewey, the director
of the Antep American Hospital, defined the necessity of
building closer ties of cooperation with the local medical
establishment and with the Turkish government and after
the 1960’s, projects of public health and health education
became a focus point of the hospital. This was when the
nursing and medical attendant courses, run informally, became
institutionalised.
In the report of the Hospital Association from 1964, it
is stated that, although the hospital did not have a formal
school, nursing education is continued in the hospital and
that 70 thousand lira is spent each year for each nursing
student (20). Finally, in 1973, a nursing school was officially
opened. The private nursing school was directed by the
head nurse Muzaffer Kürkçü. In the first year, the school
was started with 15 young women (20). In 1977, after the
legal regulations changed, the school had to fulfill the requirements
put for schools of higher education and the
school had to close in 1978. In 1995, the school made a last
attempt and could last this time only for four years, after
giving one generation of graduates (23).
The Relations of the ABCFM Missionaries
with the City
In the eyes of the missionaries, Antep was always a backward
city in a thousand year old sleep. However, inspite of
the prejudiced gaze of the missionaries and the tensions of
the clashing ethnicities, the people of Antep easily accepted
the medical services offered in the hospital. In time, the missionaries
seem to have developed emotional attachments to
the city, with active involvement in urban life and like in the
example of the Shepard family, left a mark in the memories
of the people. Antep had its local doctors, pharmacists
and midwives before the missionaries came. Although not
institutionalized and quite random, professionals of modern
medicine practiced here.But, the missionary doctors of
the ABCFM traveled regularly on horse back through village
and towns, dispersed medicine and provided organised
cure during epidemics of typhus and cholera, followed and
applied quarantine regulations, like keeping villagers with
infectious diseases in the wards and not letting them back in
their villages, they effectively intervened in cases of trahoma
and cataract and so saved many from blindness, opened
soup kitchens during famines, supported patients in need
with food and medicine and so, contributed greatly to the
acceptance of modern medicine in Antep.
In time, the Antep American Hospital turned into
an institution providing secular health care services. The
policies of the Turkish government play a big part in this
transformation. Today also, the hospital functions as an intermittant
between philanthropic organisations in the USA
and the patients needing financial support in Antep.
Conclusion
World wide, ABCFM contributed to the adjustment
of local economies to the global market. In the Ottoman
Empire too, one of the goals was to create new needs and
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ISHIM 2011-2012