On August 8, 2019, the co-founder of our society passed away in Cologne after a long and serious illness. Dr. İsmet Turanlı was born on September 20 1930 in Malatya, Turkey.
After his state examination and his doctoral thesis in Istanbul in 1955, he worked as an assistant doctor at the University Women’s Hospital Ankara with Prof. Canga until 1957. After spending two years abroad at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, at the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm and at the State Women’s Hospital in Wuppertal under Prof. Anselmino, Dr. Turanlı passed the specialist examination for gynecology and obstetrics in Ankara. In 1960, Dr. Turanlı moved to Germany, where he first worked at the State Women’s Hospital in Wuppertal after approval of his specialisation in Germany. Starting in 1964, he became a managing Senior Physician at St. Hildegardis Hospital in Cologne. In 1965, Dr. Turanlı settled in a private practice in Cologne. From the beginning of his ambulatory work, his focus was on the field of reproductive medicine. In 1982 he founded an IVF center where he attained the first Turkish IVF child in Germany. In 1993 he founded the German-Turkish Gynecological Society in Cologne together with Prof. Broer, with whom he remained close until his death. For his many years of service as an established colleague, but especially for his extraordinary commitment to German-Turkish relations, he received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon, First Class, in 1997.
In addition to his work as a gynecologist and reproductive physician, Dr. Turanlı had many interests. Three-hundred and fifty non-medical publications, four short stories, and 250 poems in Turkish and German and eight compositions, several of which were also performed during the meetings of the German-Turkish Gynecological Society, are testimony of his extraordinary passion.
With Dr. Turanlı we have lost a valuable colleague of extraordinary commitment who has earned special merit for his work for German-Turkish relations and our society. We will always keep him in honorable memory and our thoughts are with his wife and his large family.
Prof. Peter Mallmann, M.D.