A group of urology doctors from the United States and the United Kingdom were provided with training by experts at Istanbul’s Başakşehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital, as Türkiye seeks to export its expertise in health care.

The hospital’s urology clinic hosted the doctors for field training on robotic surgery, prosthetics surgery, holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP) surgery, noninvasive surgery to break down stones in the urinary system and other advanced surgical techniques.

Professor Abdulmuttalip Şimşek, a robotic and reconstructive urology expert at the hospital, and his team demonstrated their techniques in surgeries participated by British and American doctors. The doctors are scheduled to join four other surgeries to observe the working methods of their Turkish colleagues.

Şimşek told reporters on Tuesday that the visiting doctors will be given a certificate after completing their training.

"Our hospital is equipped with state-of-art equipment. When combined with techniques developed by our staff, we achieved good results in surgeries. This in turn attracted the attention of doctors abroad. We received doctors from the U.S. and the U.K. and there is more demand for training from other countries. We also trained physicians from Italy, Spain, Iraq and Egypt, from Middle Eastern and African countries. Some experience one or two-day training while others have longer training for one week or one month," he explained. Şimşek said feedback has been good so far and on several occasions, their staff participate in surgeries abroad to support their colleagues.

"Our latest guests were amazed at the size of our hospital. We have good surgery rooms here and thanks to the size of the staff and hospital, we can perform multiple surgeries simultaneously. Currently, 100 surgeries are occurring. In the urology clinic, we can perform five surgeries simultaneously. In a way, through the training, we give our trainees a chance to see how health tourism has advanced in Türkiye," he said.

Dr. Rowland Rees, a urologist from the U.K., said they benefited greatly from the training. Rees told reporters that they had the opportunity to become familiar with new medical devices and praised the infrastructure of the hospital and the quality of education.

Dr. Florian Stroie from the U.S. said that he was impressed with the hospital and said the training was important for them to see the techniques applied to patients.