Prof. Dr. İ. Nazmi Hoşal passed away on the 24th of November 2022, two weeks before his 92nd birthday in his hometown Ankara, Turkey. He was one of the first-generation members who founded and took forward Hacettepe University Medical School into one of the most successful medical schools in Turkey. A strong supporter of audiology, he opened a road for founding modern audiology in our country. The first science of audiology in Turkey was established by Professor Hoşal in 1967 at the Hacettepe University. He trained thousands of medical school students, hundreds of otorhinolaryngology specialists, and treated thousands of patients during his fertile professional life over more than 50 years.
Professor Hoşal was born in İstanbul on 8th December 1930. He completed his high school education in Ankara, at Ankara Gazi High School. He began medical school in Ankara University and after his graduation in 1956 went to the USA. He had his internship at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, IL. and had completed his Otorhinolaryngology residency in Washington D.C, at the Washington Hospital Center affiliated with the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (Figure 1). During his chief residency year in 1960 he achieved the highest number and qualification of surgical procedures among the ENT residents according to American Medical Association (AMA) records. He was then accepted as Assistant Professor by George Sisson at Northwestern University in Chicago. In the meantime he returned to Turkey to complete his obligatory military service.
After returning to Ankara as a young specialist he met Professor Dr. İhsan Doğramacı who was at the time founding an institution at Ankara University, which was later to become first the Hacettepe Medical School and then the Hacettepe University. Professor Doğramacı gathered many young specialists that were trained in the USA and provided them with the means to build their own departments at modern standards as they had learned during their residencies abroad. In this new setting, Professor Hoşal decided not to return to Chicago but stay in Turkey. His most important incentives were to be able to provide state-of-the-art healthcare services and train young people in modern otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (Figure 2, 3). Thanks to the work of Professor Hoşal and his lifetime friends and comrades who have worked with him at the Hacettepe University Medical School from the beginning, Hacettepe University became one of the best modern universities in Turkey along with the Middle East Technical University. Unfortunately, we have lost most of these professors who have jointly built a modern and successful medical school which offers excellent graduate and post-graduate education, nevertheless a modern training hospital which is not inferior to most leading international centers.
Professor Hoşal was one of few living members of these generation. He was especially keen on having international relations. He guided many of us into building good connections with colleagues in Europe and North America. He supported young practitioners to go abroad and visit different clinics where they would interact and work with their colleagues. He was the first corresponding member from Turkey in the American Head and Neck Society (AHNS) and the American Laryngological Association (ALA). He was also a co-founder of the European Laryngological Sociey (ELS) representing Turkey.
He lived a long and productive life both as a professor at the Hacettepe University and a physician in his private clinic which he ran for more than 45 years. He retired as professor from the Hacettepe University in 1997, but actively his work in his clinic until age of 89 (Figure 4).
Following a cardiac surgery, he experienced many complications which kept him from working. Until recently, he spent part of his time in his summer house in Bodrum, which he enjoyed a lot, and was socially active on the social media, keeping in touch with his students, friends, and beloved family.
Professor Hoşal was a very caring and loving husband, father and grandfather. He always put his family at the heart of his life along with his profession. He lived 59 happy years with his wife Selma Hoşal, with whom he had two children. He has always been proud of his son, Dr. Şefik Hoşal, who followed on his path and became an otorhinolaryngologist and professor in his own clinic, and his daughter Nazlı Akman who became a successful businesswoman. He spent many a happy days with his four grandchildren (Figure 5).
He liked doing sports in his youth. Bicycling, ice-skating, skiing, judo, spearfishing and horseback riding were some of his passions. He also was a very good sport shooter, but bicycling and horseback riding were his favorites. He was once selected to the Turkish Olympic bicycle team, but his father did not allow him to participate. In his forties he developed great interest in farming, planting, and animals. He had a ranch near Ankara where he raised cows for dairy farming and producing milk. He planted fruits and forest trees, grew vegetables and fruits. This activity helped to reduce his professional stress and tension. Particularly in the summer evenings he came here with his friends relaxed in his swimming pool. He loved horseback riding here and made 20 to 30 km tours across rural Ankara. He spent delightful days in his farm until his mid-eighties.
Professor Hoşal has always been a perfectionist, a meticulous person and wanted his colleagues and students to keep their standards up to a high level. He was the founder and the honorary president of Hacettepe University’s ENT Alumni, the first example of clinical alumnae organizations in Turkey. Thanks to the thorough education he fostered, we, alumni members who trained under him or the sister institutions which were later founded by his students following his principles enjoy a special connection. Whenever we get together as alumni, we always end up talking about him, about our days in Hacettepe University and the time we spent with him.
Prof. Hoşal, unlike some of his colleagues at the time and despite their serious criticisms, never kept his professional knowledge and skills to himself, but shared everything he knew with his students and colleagues. He was a pioneer in ORL and undertook many firsts in Turkey including a number of surgical techniques. He had personally taught his students the modern surgical techniques which he had learned in the USA. He performed the first stapes teflon piston operation for otosclerosis, the first modern parotidectomy by preserving facial nerve, the commando procedure in oral cancer in Turkey. He was a strong supporter of radical surgery in head and neck cancer. He pioneered in suprahyoid neck dissection in lower lip cancer and retrosternal mediastinal dissection in subglottic laryngeal cancer. He had an infectious working energy and a tireless passion for his profession. He was one of the few pioneers of his time who brought multi-disciplinary scientific thinking into otorhinolaryngology. All Hacettepe alumni, who trained under his high scientific principles, ethics and professional standards appreciate and cherish the education he has given us to this day.
He indeed was a great man with extraordinary intelligence and memory, willpower, and passion. He was a strong and influential character. He had many close and long-time friends in Ankara where he had spent his early youth, and quite active days. All his friends and their families admired and liked him as a brother, uncle, doctor.
He had always been a strong believer and follower of Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, and his modern principles and reforms throughout his lifetime. He always helped the ones in need, created scholarships for students, founded a Prof. Dr. İ. Nazmi Hoşal Foundation for supporting medical and post graduate students.
We will cherish his principles and strive to continue his work.
He will be missed.
