KEMAL SAYDAMER

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

  One of the capital's most successful businesswomen is Dr. Müge Yonca Özdoğan. She is a sports doctor who has worked with many champion athletes and teams. She is also an acupuncturist, using her magic hands to carefully insert needles into people with the aim of helping them with a variety of problems.

  But that's not all. Dr. Özdoğan is also a musician, a guitar player, a storywriter and an artist.  When I entered a period in my life when I could barely walk due to my weight, I decided to ring the doorbell of Acu-Life Clinic. As an obese person, a friend of mine had suggested I seek out Dr. Özdoğan, the former doctor for Turkish national teams as well as an acupuncture specialist.  The atmosphere at the clinic was impressive. It was extremely clean, with smiling personnel. The soft sounds of the "Secret Garden" album spread throughout the clinic.   The first words from Dr. Özdoğan to me were: "Finding health will not be possible with these needles alone. What will be done here will simply be to regulate your metabolism. The real work will be in your diet and your walking." Dr. Özdoğan differentiated herself with this approach from charlatans who sometimes work in this business.  Speaking to the Turkish Daily News, Dr. Özdoğan said this about her success with patients: "Seeing patients achieve health makes me unbelievably happy. In order to be successful, though, I definitely have to create empathy. But empathy is not just putting yourself in the position of the person across from you. Empathy is getting a feeling for what the other person interprets and understands from the situation. The second measure of success in these cases is informing the patient. Patients who have been adequately informed know how they will overcome what faces them."  Dr. Özdoğan gives a brief overview of her background to the TDN. "I spent my entire student life in Ankara. After finishing medical school, I chose to go into sports medicine, which put me with athletes on playing fields and in gymnasiums and at tournaments. As a doctor who had received a modern medical education I began to think that there should be alternative therapies made available to these athletes who had incurred injuries and suffered from aches and diseases. It was during this period that I became acquainted with Chinese medicine. I began to dabble in acupuncture and energy-balancing therapy. "I realized that the real definition of health is a balance and unity in spiritual, physical and mental being. Later I also received an education in hypnotherapy and thus began to understand how, when the subconscious is well directed, it can make us free and healthy. I think our real reason for existence on this earth is to make our lives better, to feel healthier, full of energy, and beautiful. We can be people who derive pleasure from living, who engage in both sports and an artistic life, who know our bodies and understand the games that time and its passage play with us. "The education in modern Western as well as traditional Eastern medicine that I received has given me a well-rounded approach to health, something I realized attending by many conferences and congresses over the years. Therefore, my goal has become to practice medicine with the goal of unifying spiritual and physical health."  Dr. Özdoğan is married to Dr. Zafer Özdoğan and is the mother of Çağıl. She captures the hearts of everyone she comes across, with strong bonds to both her family and her patients. Dr. Özdoğan's family has a special relationship with music, with the doctor herself playing the guitar, while her husband sings and also plays the guitar. Rounding out the picture, their son plays the saxophone. Dr. Özdoğan even plays at various venues in Ankara when she is not busy treating people.  

Acupuncture: Dr. Özdoğan has treated a number of male and female world-class athletes, including Olympic weight-lifting champion Halil Mutlu. Speaking to the TDN about acupuncture therapy, Dr. Özdoğan said the following:  "Acupuncture means sticking needles into the skin of the body at certain points. The most important part of this therapy is to know and recognize these points, to localize them and to make sure that in doing this you are recognizing the particular case of your patient. The technique is not as easy as might be thought, especially when you understand that there are 100 different techniques for doing this."  Acupuncture is used in the treatment of many diseases. A spot on the hand when treated by acupuncture can help a headache, for example. Likewise, acupuncture treatment on a point in the back can also help a headache, while a different spot on the back can help treat the lungs. Different spots on the ankles and wrists can help with constipation. What's more, the acupuncture needles do not hurt and can be used on all age groups. The important thing is that the doctor carrying out acupuncture treatment be licensed and possess a certificate from the Health Ministry."  World Health Organization statistics show successful progress being achieved with acupuncture on problems like alcohol and cigarette addiction as well as with stroke, depression, menstrual imbalance, aches and pains, and many other complaints. Dr. Özdoğan says acupuncture is successful in terms of balancing the metabolism but that the patient must also work on diet and exercise in order to complete the treatment.