Okan University School of Health Sciences started to its activities with 8 Nursing students in 2009-2010 educational year by the judgment of Higher Education Council dated in 10.09.2009. Health promotion activities depend on the quality and quantity of healthcare professionals and institutions in addition to public awareness. For effective and healthy projection of factors that has role in human health and detected in parallel with scientific and technologic development, healthcare services needs to be provided in a multidisciplinary approach. In developed countries, a hundred year before, the need of different groups of profession in healthcare was mentioned and educational programs developed for these professions were put into practice. In Turkey, in the last 50 years after the oldest health professions as medicine and nursing, countless health professions started to take role in providing health care. In our country which has young and intense population, there is a need for trained staff in this area. Proceedings from these facts, our departments and their objectives are presented below:
The aim of the Department of Nursing is to educate nurses who plan, organize, apply, and evaluate nursing services directed to goals of preserving, enhancing the health of individuals, families and societies and diagnosing possible affections. The goal is to train inquisitive, socially responsible nurses with the capability of taking charge as consultants, educators of nurses and managers in line with the international standards and ethics codes.
Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation is a scientific discipline that treats and remedies the functional conditions after every kind of disease that causes movement disabilities, injuries, senility and pain and functional disorders. A physiotherapist is a healthcare professional who treats functional limitations, pain, disabilities and disorders caused by injuries, diseases, congenital deformities, movement disabilities or any other cases, having occupational autonomy to employ specific measurement, evaluation and examination techniques. The physiotherapist also designs, implements, re-evaluates and reports physiotherapy and rehabilitation programs for improving functional capacity in line with the specialist physician’s diagnosis. For healthy individuals, the physiotherapist plans relevant exercises, and special programs to prolong healthy physical functions. Our aim is to educate qualified, knowledgeable physiotherapists servicing the country and its people.
The mission of the Nutrition and Dietetics Program is to educate students to become dietitians who analyze and find solutions for nutritional problems of the individuals and the community, provide healthy nutrition to the mass feeding organizations in public and private sector by effective management of food services, contribute to nutrition education and policy making activities across disciplines through effective communication, plan diets for individuals which suits their psychological, physiological, economical and sociological conditions, continue to advance their knowledge by following developments in academic world and make contributions through researches. The vision of the department is to be recognized, preferred and role model in both national and international level with its scientific researches, consultation services and publications.
Department of Child Development has been established with the aim of training Child Development Specialists who serve society, educators and children aged between 0-18 along with improving support programs for all the developmental stages (mental, language, motor, self care, social and emotional) of the children, who normally developing, need special care, need protection (children living in normal/special care providing institutions, working, immigrant and delinquent) and children in hospital. Our graduates with the title of Child Educationalist show the performance of developmental diagnosis and according to that diagnosis provide early intervention programs with an eclectically approach, to provide consultancy for families; also serve to apply precautions suitable to support the development after the diagnosis for the children who shows developmental deviation with the basis of child, family and teacher/educators. Also similarly in special education field, diagnosing handicapped children's developments, they serve in the frame of multidisciplinary approach with the related professionals to take necessary precautions for the child and the family.
