Dyt. Goknel Dumanlı

After graduating from TED Ankara College, I went to Houston, Texas for training. At Houston University, I received Bachelor of Science Education in ‘Human Nutrition and Food’ as the principal branch, and in Psychology as a sub-branch. I studied my master’s degree in health management at Phoenix University. I completed my internship at Baylor College of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical schools of the United States, and served as a research dietitian for 15 years at the cardiovascular disease prevention center of the same university.
In the meantime, I provided dietitian counseling service for patients preparing for bariatric surgery at Wellness Center affiliated to Methodist Hospital, headed by Dr. Peter Jones, who is also one of the executive physicians of the above-mentioned center where I worked. With this task, I entered the world of bariatric surgery, and became very impressed. I saw how such people suffering from obesity (morbid obesity in particular) changed physiologically and psychologically, and how they held on to the life again after surgery. Because the cost of these surgical operations are covered by the insurance institution in the United States, our patients were strictly followed up for a period of 3 months by dietitians, psychologists and internal medicine doctors. We prepared such patients for surgery by putting them on an 800-calorie-per-day liquid diet. At the end of the 3-month period, the evaluations were made, and then patients were taken under operation in cases where their condition allowed. As a center, we had more duties to perform at that stage.
At that center, I learned the importance of following up patients who had undergone bariatric surgery. I have witnessed how periodic examinations, post-operative diet and exercise, and dialog with the physician influence the success in the long term.
Meanwhile, when I researched whether such surgical operations were also performed in Turkey, I heard that our master Ahmet Turkcapar had begun to perform gastric by-pass operations in Ankara, and it made me feel very proud. Years later, I felt very honored to return to Turkey and begin to serve as a bariatric surgery dietitian in the strong team of our valuable master Prof. Dr. Ahmet Turkcapar, who is one of the doyens in this field.
My greatest goal is to stand with our patients, who decided to have bariatric surgery, in their entire life before and after surgery, and to see them gaining their new bodies healthily and happily.