Short history of medicine in Romania

I'm not going to tell you about the prehistorical age or so. I am going to write about a few names that made a difference in the hole medical world and gave their contribution to the large amount of knowledge we are supposed to learn as medical students.
If you go and search on pubmed.com for ˝romanian˝ you're going to find 26756 articles. All researchers, maybe not all doctors, but still remarkable every single one of them. Even so, that doesn't tell you too much, does it?! That's why I'm going to tell you about those romanians that discovered things you can relate to.

Grigore T. Popa - talamo-hipofizar portal sistem with Henry Fielding

Victor Babeş - Babeş-Ernst bodies: Metachromatic intracellular deposits of polyphosphate found in Corynebacterium diphtheriae when the bacteria are grown on when the bacteria are grown on sub optimal media.
Babeş-Negri bodies: inclusions in rabies-infected nervous cells
Babesia: parasites of the genus Hemosporidiae
Babesiosis (Piroplasmosis):severe rare desease, deadly sometimes, caused by an intracelular protozoa, Babesia microti.

Ana Aslan - founding figure of gerontology and geriatrics in Romania. 1952 - vitamin H3 (Gerovital), geriatric product patented in more than 30 countries. The genuine recipe was only known by Ana Aslan. The drugs existing on the market today are made after the original medicine but are not directly related to Ana Aslan's medicine. They are only using the fame of the original name. Especially the ones produced outside Romania.

Mihai Ciucă - disovered the lysogenic conversion of bacteria

Nicolae Paulescu - Romanian professor, he had been working on diabetes since 1916, and had isolated insulin (which he called pancreatine) about a year before the Canadians, Frederick Banting and John Macleod, that received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923. Later, all became known, but it was too late. (wikipedia.com)

Ioan Cantacuzino - His discoveries were relevant in the treatment of cholera, epidemic typhus, tuberculosis, and scarlet fever. As a disciple of Mechnikov, he devoted part of his research to expanding on the latter's field of interest (phagocytes, the body's means of defence against pathogens, as well as the issue of immunity and invertebrates). He invented the notion of contact immunity.

Dimitrie Gerota - Gerota's method - Injection of the lymphatics with a dye that is soluble in chloroform or ether but not in water; alkannin, red sulfide of mercury, and Prussian blue are said to be suitable for this purpose.
Gerota's capsule/fascia - Renal fascia - The condensation of the fibroareolar tissue and fat surrounding the kidney to form a sheath for the organ.

Gheorghe Marinescu - neurologyst - Early in his career he published with the bacteriologist Victor Babeş and the French pathologist Paul Oscar Blocq a much needed atlas on the pathological histology of the nervous system. His description with Blocq of a case of parkinsonian tremor due to tumour in the substantia nigra, in 1893, was the basis for Édouard Brissaud's theory that parkinsonism occurs as a consequence of damage to the substantia nigra. With Paul Blocq he was the first to describe senile plaques and with Romanian neurologist Ion Minea confirmed in 1913 Hideyo Noguchi's discovery of Treponema pallidum in the brain in patients with general paresis. His monumental work La Cellule Nerveuse, with a preface by Santiago Ramon y Cajal, appeared in 1909.

George Emil Palade - used electron microscopy to study the internal organization of such cell structures as mitochondria, chloroplasts, the Golgi apparatus, and others. His most important discovery was related made while using an experimental strategy known as a pulse-chase experiment. In the experiment Palade and his colleagues were able to confirm an existing hypothesis that a secretory pathway exists and that the Rough ER and the Golgi apparatus function together. His name has become attached to the Weibel-Palade bodies (a storage organelle unique to the endothelium, containing von Willebrand factor and various proteins). In 1974, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Albert Claude and Christian de Duve, for his discoveries concerning the structure and function of organelles in biological cells.

Rail and road

The country has an extended network of roads and rail to get anywhere you want. There is a way for any direction so don't worry! Choose your destination and off we go!





Each city has it's own particular beauty and leaving aside the citys in witch you can make your summer practice there is much more to be seen.

If you want, you can find Online Timetable services for trains and for buses, but don't worry too much about that because you'll be on good hands and we'll take care of that :).

Where is Romania?

Maybe you know something about Romania, maybe you dont. However that is, it might be better to tell you a thing or two about our country. We could start with how beautifull it is, but first WHERE is it anyway?
Hope the pictures tell more than a thousand words!

Fly to Romania!

So you decided to come to Romania. But how do you get here?
Maybe you havent decided yet, but you would like to know anyway.
Nevertheless I am going to tell you. The photo above shows all the airports in Romania. They are not all international ones, some of them are rather small, but it's good to come by plane at least to some point and go the rest of the way by train or car.
In case you are interested you can see some of the airports photographed from satelite:
Bucharest Otopeni
Bucharest Baneasa
Cluj
Iasi
Constanta
Craiova
Timisoara
Visit Romanian Air Trafic Controllers' Association(RATCA) website for more!

About this blog!

Hi! You are reading this for a reason and you know it better than anybody else. So let us hope that it's going to satisfy your curiosity and needs and let's get started.
This blog is for students that come with the IFMSA professional exchange program to Romania regardless of the city you chose to stay in.
I know that: It will never be finnished, everything up to date or perfect, but keep in touch and keep on reading.

What will you find here? For a start I'm planning to tell you about:

• transport to, from and around
• room and food
• hospitals
• citys
• The Team(us the students you are going to meet)
• parks, clubs, coffee shops, bars, malls
• sights, museums
• About Romania.. culture and stuff, including other cities you shouldn't miss
• links

Maybe this will give you a little preview before you come to Romania and you will be better able to take any opportunity and make the best of your stay here. You'dd better do that or else we'll have to force you! :P

In time you'll be able to read here other student's impressions and add your own, so that your experience can help others. That's a way of saying "please don't leave me all the hard work!", but realy, it would be good to have as many opinions as possible, so comment!