Beyond the Symptom: Healing the System
A future physician's journey in medical ethics, sustainable design, and community leadership.
A future physician's journey in medical ethics, sustainable design, and community leadership.
A New York-born, IB Diploma candidate and multilingual (native English/Turkish, intermediate Spanish) emerging leader with a global perspective. Passionate about the intersection of Medical Law & Ethics, sustainable system design, and community building. A proven problem-solver with the initiative to turn ideas into action and engineer innovative solutions to complex challenges.
Being born in New York and growing up in Ankara—first within a multinational diplomatic and military community (DoDEA) and later at an IB World School (BLIS)—taught me to see the world not through a single window, but through a series of intersecting perspectives. I have been shaped by building bridges between cultures, disciplines, and ideas.
The pandemic was not a pause for me, but a period of discovery. Through HarvardX's course, "The Health Effects of Climate Change," I realized a core truth: healing the planet and healing people are two fronts of the same battle. This realization drove me to design sustainability projects like "Solisfoco" and "ForestAnkara," while simultaneously steering me toward a deep passion for medicine.
However, the defining moment of my path was my medical shadowing experience at Ankara University's Faculty of Medicine.
There, I witnessed not only the complex technology of angiography procedures but also the extraordinary dialogue Prof. Dr. Tamer Sayın had with his patients. His positive approach, which made patients feel valued and utilized technology to make him accessible, was profoundly different from the standard doctor-patient relationships I had observed.
I understood in that moment: medicine is not just about treating disease, but about healing the system that touches the patient.
This observation sparked a focused ambition: to not only become a physician but to also research the "Medical Law" and ethics legislation governing doctor-patient relations in Turkey and around the world. My goal is to target academic publications, advocating for this better approach to become the standard.
I am driven to act when I see a need. When our school lacked a tennis club, I didn't wait for the administration to respond. I took the initiative, founded the BLIS Tennis Working Group, and transformed a latent student interest into an active community.
To me, leadership isn't just about organizing; it's about sharing what you know. This belief led me to teach reading to younger students at the DoDEA library, volunteer as a math teacher for 5th graders, and give private piano and tennis lessons to pass on my skills.
For me, dedication is like completing a half-marathon; it requires persistence and discipline. This is true whether it's my 10+ years of classical piano training at the Hacettepe Conservatory, my three consecutive years performing on a professional stage (Farabi Stage), or learning winter survival skills in the Bolu mountains. I am defined by my follow-through.
The "President's Outstanding Academic Excellence" award from the U.S. Ambassador demonstrates my academic commitment, while my astronomy lessons from former NASA employees show that my curiosity has no limits.
I am Ada. I am a medical candidate, a systems thinker, and a community builder. I am ready to bring to your campus not just a curiosity that asks "why?" but a leader's drive that asks, "How can we make this better?"—and the will to see the answer through.