Professor İhsan Doğramacı, who graduated from Istanbul University School of Medicine, worked as a paediatrician at Numune Hospital in Ankara, then at Boston Children’s Hospital, which is the paediatric teaching hospital of 
Harvard Medical School, and then at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, the teaching hospital of Washington University. He was conferred the degrees of associated professor in 1949 and professor in 1954 by Ankara University. He played a key role in the establishment of the Paediatrics Institute, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Hacettepe University. He introduced the practice of integrating the medical education system with the academicians’ working hours.
Professor Doğramacı served as the rector of Ankara University from 1963 to 1965, as the President of the Board of Trustees of Middle East Technical University from 1965 to 1967, and as the Rector of Hacettepe University from 1965 to 1967. Then, he was appointed to an academic post at the University of Paris V in France.
Professor İhsan Doğramacı acted as an executive board member of the Conference of European University Rectors and Vice Chancellors between 1964 and 1973. After 1981, he held the post of a board member in the said Conference, and became the President and then the Honorary President of International Conference on Higher Education. He worked as a consultant in the establishment of medical schools and medical education curricula in Yaounde, Cameron; Ife, Nigeria; Brasilia, Brazil; and Sherbrooke, Canada. Thus, Professor Doğramacı had the chance to closely observe the higher education systems in other countries.
Professor İhsan Doğramacı is the first president of the Higher Education Council in Turkey and he held this post for a decade between December 10, 1981 and July 10, 1992. He acted as the President of the Bilkent University Board of Trustees until he passed away in February 2010.
Professor Doğramacı was a member of Akademie der Naturforscher in Germany, National Academy of Medical Sciences in India, Académie Nationale de Médecine in France, Academy of Paediatrics in the United States, Academia of Sciences in Azerbaijan, and Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom. In addition to being a founding member of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in the United Kingdom, he is an honorary member of a variety of professional organizations in more than twenty countries.
The contributions of Professor Doğramacı to education in Turkey include not only the foundation of Bilkent University, the first Turkish foundation university, but also the establishment and opening of Özel Bilkent High School in September 1993, Özel Bilkent Primary School in 1994, Bilkent University Music Preparatory School (now called İhsan Doğramaci Foundation Özel Bilkent Laboratory School) in 1994, İhsan Doğramacı Foundation Özel Bilkent Erzurum Laboratory High School in 2008, and finally İhsan Doğramacı Foundation Özel Bilkent Erbil Primary School in Iraq.
Our beloved Founder passed away on 25th February, 2010. We will always remember him with great respect and gratitude for his invaluable contributions as a world citizen.
The commemoration of Prof. İhsan Doğramacı
