For two days, 14 resident doctors and young specialists from Bucharest and other cities across the country have been trained in complex surgical techniques, under the guidance of experts from the San Donato Group – Prof. Dr. Alessandro Frigiola and Prof. Dr. Tammam Youssef.
The Minister of Health emphasized that pediatric cardiovascular surgery is a challenging field, with few specialists at the European level. The GSD’s expertise is brought to Romania for young doctors, with the aim of increasing patients’ access to high-quality medical services.
“Ten years ago, 80% of children in Romania with heart malformations had to seek a solution abroad, currently, 80% are operated in Romania. We have young specialists who work together with Italian colleagues or even work on their own in many situations in university centers in Bucharest, Timișoara, Cluj, and Iași, alongside Târgu Mureș which developed this specialty earlier but is quite limited in terms of capacity. We need to have the capacity to operate over 2,000 children each year, as many children are born with heart malformations and just as many need to find access to a high-quality medical service, and the fact that these operations are performed in Romania with a very, very low mortality, I think is extremely important,” stated Prof. Univ. Dr. Alexandru Rafila, the Minister of Health.
We thank our partners, the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, the Romanian Society of Cardiovascular Surgery, the Bucharest College of Physicians for encouraging and supporting this initiative that leads to the development of specialized human resources in pediatric cardiovascular surgery in Romania!