The Future of Healthcare Begins with People: From Education to Knowledge and Technology

The New Paradigm of Health Tourism – Part 11

University entrance results have been announced, and young people are making choices that will shape their futures. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and other healthcare fields remain among the most popular professions. This gives us an opportunity to ask a more fundamental question:

What kind of workforce does Türkiye want to develop for the healthcare system of the future?

Healthcare involves many professions working simultaneously, interdependently and towards a shared purpose. Hospitals are among the most complex organisations. Physicians, nurses, technicians, physiotherapists, dietitians, pharmacists, psychologists, biomedical specialists, engineers, IT teams, healthcare managers and many others belong to the same system. AI, robotic surgery, genomics, biotechnology, digital health, remote care and data analytics are also advancing rapidly. We cannot build the future simply by training more physicians. We must plan complementary health professions together, in the right numbers and with the right skills.

Numbers or better planning?

For years, Türkiye has debated physician numbers, physicians per population and OECD comparisons. These are important, but total physician numbers alone cannot explain a system’s real performance. We note that our physician density is below OECD averages, while annual consultations and consultations per physician are high. Taken together, these figures raise a question:

Is the issue solely a shortage of physicians, or must we also rethink service organisation and the use of our workforce?

Easy access to a physician is valuable. Yet measuring success solely by annual consultation frequency may be inadequate. What matters is whether patients receive care at the right level, physicians have sufficient time, unnecessary repeat visits are reduced, primary care is used effectively and other professionals’ skills are fully utilised. I consider recent steps and growing awareness in this area important.

A physician seeing many patients in a day may appear highly productive. But if consultation time falls, assessment becomes superficial and patients quickly re-enter the system, a high consultation count cannot be regarded as success on its own. Perhaps we must discuss access with quality, alongside accessibility.

Everyone should be able to fulfil their professional role

Another aspect of workforce planning is the distribution of responsibilities. Professionals should work where their training enables them to create the greatest value. A physician’s principal contribution lies in clinical decisions, diagnosis, treatment and the patient relationship. Nurses, technicians, physiotherapists, pharmacists and other professionals have their own competencies. Poor allocation wastes capacity and increases staff workloads.

The same applies to management. Healthcare institutions are too complex to be managed through clinical experience alone. Finance, human resources, quality, digital transformation, health technologies, investment, international relations, health tourism, operations and strategy each require expertise.

Physicians’ participation in management and the clinical perspective in decision-making are valuable. We must also recognise healthcare management as a professional specialty in its own right.

A physician’s core value lies beside the patient; a healthcare manager’s lies in ensuring that care is delivered through the right system.

Higher education and the healthcare workforce must be planned together

We discuss which universities and programmes young people should choose. As a country, we must ask which professions and skills Türkiye will need in ten years. How many physicians, and in which specialties? How many nurses, physiotherapists, technicians, managers, biomedical engineers and data scientists? Which new professions will emerge? These questions are being discussed and partly planned at various levels. Yet we must anticipate transformation now and build awareness. Qualified people from engineering, data science, IT, management and technology will need stronger roles in healthcare. Education planning must therefore extend beyond university admission quotas.

The Ministry of Health and the Council of Higher Education, YÖK, should jointly plan the long-term workforce using population projections, ageing, disease burden, regional needs, technology, migration, health tourism and emerging professions. Opening more medical faculties or increasing quotas is insufficient on its own. Education quality, faculty capacity, practical training, teaching hospitals, specialty distribution and postgraduate employment must be assessed within the same system. The question is where professionals work, in which specialties, under which responsibilities and within what service model, as well as how many we have.

Health tourism also depends on people

Türkiye promises international patients quality, trust and strong clinical outcomes. Growth must not make domestic and international patients compete for the same limited workforce. The economic value generated should fund new capacity, technology, skilled professionals, education, research and infrastructure. Health tourism can then develop the system’s capacity.

Our international vision should also recognise workforce development as more than meeting domestic needs. We recently discussed health corridors; movement of knowledge and education could be among their most valuable elements.

Türkiye can train physicians and healthcare managers, develop clinical programmes, conduct joint research and export knowledge, alongside receiving patients. Treating one patient provides care to one person. Training a health professional can bring that knowledge to hundreds or thousands of patients over many years.

Give young people a wider horizon as well as a profession

Türkiye’s transformation in another field offers lessons. Aircraft engineering, space technology, software, defence technology and advanced engineering were once less visible career choices. Investment, institutional development, technology production and ambitious objectives created a new workforce and new role models, alongside products. Selçuk Bayraktar becoming a role model, Türkiye developing its own unmanned aircraft and communications satellite, and sending a person into space demonstrate an important point:

When young people receive opportunities, objectives and an ecosystem in which to produce, a generation’s understanding of careers can change. They begin asking “What can I develop?” alongside “Which programme will help me find work?” Why should we not achieve the same transformation in healthcare?

The future health professional will work beyond the clinic

Türkiye’s young people can become physicians, dentists, nurses and healthcare managers. They can also develop AI diagnostic systems and robotic surgery technologies, establish biotechnology companies, create personalised medicine solutions, research medicines and vaccines, introduce models in genetics and genomics, design systems that interpret health data and develop wearable technologies used worldwide. Healthcare increasingly crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Medicine is intertwined with engineering, AI, genetics, biotechnology, data science, robotics and management science. Workforce planning must therefore address how many engineers, scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and managers Türkiye needs to develop future health technologies, alongside medical students.

A country that produces knowledge

Türkiye has substantial healthcare experience and a rich historical heritage. Pride in the past alone cannot build the future. Recognising Ibn Sina’s place in this region’s scientific history is valuable. The greater question is: why should future figures of his stature not emerge here again? We now have stronger opportunities. We can access global knowledge and draw on the East’s historical and cultural heritage alongside the West’s scientific research and technology culture. We can combine these with Türkiye’s healthcare experience, engineering capabilities, universities and young population. Our goal should include producing healthcare knowledge, treatments and technology.

Young people choosing university programmes need more than information about admission scores, earnings or job security. Perhaps we must offer them a broader horizon.

Years ago, developing our own unmanned aircraft and communications satellite, or a Turkish citizen conducting scientific experiments in space, seemed distant goals to many young people.

Today, these are realities.

Why should we not write a similar story in healthcare?

Why should Türkiye not develop healthcare technologies and treatment models used worldwide, alongside training physicians sought after around the world?

Why should a new school of healthcare, bringing together the East’s centuries of knowledge and the West’s science and technology, not emerge from Türkiye?

And why should the Ibn Sinas of the future not emerge from this region once again?