Logró lo imposible: se graduó tanto de la facultad de medicina como de ingeniería.

Muhammed Furkan Daşdelen, who ranked third in Turkey, won a full scholarship to Istanbul Medipol University International School of Medicine and continued his medical studies while also pursuing a Double Major Program in Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Daşdelen aims to represent Turkey in the world by combining medicine and engineering through his future studies.

Although the university’s international medical faculty has been admitting students since 2014, the opportunity for students to participate in double major programs was provided in 2018. Muhammed Furkan Daşdelen, who ranked third in Turkey in the Undergraduate Placement Exam in 2017, was placed in Istanbul Medipol University International School of Medicine and also graduated from the Computer Engineering Program of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences in 2024. Daşdelen thus became one of the first graduates of the double major program in medicine and computer science.

Aim: To train physician researchers who apply an engineering perspective in the field of medicine.

Explaining that he received preparatory education in Boston before starting his medical education, Daşdelen stated, ‘The main purpose of this program is to train physician researchers who apply an engineering perspective, vision, and knowledge in the field of medicine. For this purpose, students are provided with the opportunity to take courses in various engineering disciplines, especially biomedical, electrical electronics, and computer engineering. The university offers the chance to complete these courses in minor, double major, and similar programs. Those interested in areas such as robotics, medical device development tend towards electrical, electronics, and biomedical engineering, while those interested in software, data analysis, image processing, and artificial intelligence lean towards computer engineering,’ he said.

‘I interned at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Cambridge’

Briefly mentioning his educational journey, Daşdelen said, ‘In the last 2 years of engineering, I focused more on medical data processing, biostatistics, bioinformatics, and artificial intelligence fields. I started to participate in projects of this kind. With the internship scholarship provided by the university, I had the opportunity to intern in many parts of the world. I did my first internship at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, where I worked on image processing in cardiac ultrasound and virus production for heart-specific gene modification using artificial intelligence. My second internship was on artificial intelligence at the Munich Technical University. We developed and published a model on the diagnosis of diseases like Leukemia from microscopic images using artificial intelligence. This year, I completed the last two internships at one of the universities with which our university has an agreement with America,’ he said.

‘We are trying to make our name known in international journals’

Continuing his words, Daşdelen said, ‘Thanks to the internships, we were able to develop a network internationally. In addition, the internships we did at very prestigious universities also enabled us to access the knowledge there. Most importantly, by participating in highly effective studies here, we are trying to make our name known in international journals. My goal is to work on medicine and artificial intelligence. Hopefully, in September-October, I will start a doctorate program in medicine and artificial intelligence at the Munich Technical University. I want to conduct my studies in this context.’

‘We foresaw it long ago as a university’

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Kemal Özdemir, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences of the university, stated, ‘Before starting this program, we consulted with leading figures in the field abroad. We agreed on the necessity of this program. There is always a need for innovations in medicine. Therefore, the merger of these two fields was very nice. As a university, we foresaw this long ago. Before artificial intelligence departments were opened in Turkey, we think that we were pioneers by directing our school towards this field in the field of computer engineering and by offering this as a second field to medical students,’ he said.

‘We have a system with 2,300 computer cores’

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Kemal Özdemir, said, ‘Our school has a system with 2,300 computer cores in its infrastructure. In this way, we can run artificial intelligence algorithms effectively. Children who rank in the top hundred in the university entrance exam in Turkey come to our school. We have computer infrastructure. We have expert professors in artificial intelligence. Within the framework of our prediction, we blended all of these and graduated our first students this year. We have two graduates this year. We will increase this number every year,’ he said.

‘Every year we send 5 of our children to internships abroad’

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Kemal Özdemir continued, ‘The medical program becomes intense in the third and fourth years. We try to start the Double Major Program early at this point. Especially, we make use of the summer. After raising the youth in this way, they applied for Amgen scholarships. 3 of our students started to receive this. Then the success of our children started to attract interest in universities such as ETH Zurich, Munich, Cambridge. We have recently signed a protocol agreement with ETH, and we send five of these children to summer internships every year. Currently, 5 of our students are doing internships. And this will continue in the following years. Because they have really seen the advantages of a program that combines medicine with artificial intelligence or medicine with computers, and they can see that the children trained here can do really good research.’