ISTORIA MEDICINEI LA FEMININ: PROFESOR UNIVERSITAR NATALIA GHEORGHIU (1914–2001)

Abstract

There are destinies that (without being fully known) allow us to become famil- iar with the development of a certain field. In this sense, we mention Natalia Gheo- rghiu, with studies in the field of medicine obtained at the University of Bucharest, who was the first doctor in medical sciences (1949) at the State Institute of Medi- cine in Chisinau, founded after the Second World War, in 1945, and the only doc- tor from the Moldovan SSR corresponding member of the USSR Medical Sciences Academy. This personality deserves to be praised for the merit of having been at the beginning of pediatric surgery in Moldova – the scientific record including over 250 scientific papers, several monographs and patents. Under the leadership of Natalia Gheorghiu, were elaborated and defended more than 30 theses of doctor and doctor habilitat in medical sciences, and most of the pediatric surgeons in Moldova are her disciples. In this order, based on unvalued archive documents and sources charac- teristic of oral history, in the present study we aimed to (re)discover the biographical itinerary (less known) and the pioneering activity in the field of pediatric surgery of prof. univ. Natalia Gheorghiu, who literally devoted herself to clinical, scientific and didactic activity (in certain intervals she was vice-rector for the scientific and didactic activity of the State Institute of Medicine in Chisinau).