Dear students,
Dear colleagues,
Welcome to the academic year 2023 - 2024! We are all facing a new beginning today, although many of us have experienced similar moments perhaps dozens of times. I particularly refer here to my colleagues. But while we teachers, as well as older students, have experienced similar events before, each is unique in its personal significance.
We are at the start of an academic year that we all hope will be productive and challenging. Each of us today has defined goals that we can only achieve through commitment and responsibility.
The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova is not only a medical higher education institution. It is a community that we have all chosen to be part of, regardless of personal values and motivations, but driven by a common goal: to work in healthcare. We, your teachers, will guide you in your professional training with honour and pride, because you, our students, without knowing us, have decided that we are your new tutors and mentors. At UMF Craiova we want to train more than health specialists. Here we train first and foremost PEOPLE.
Dear colleagues, each of us knows our place in the education process and how much responsibility is involved in the professional training of a new generation. It's not easy, but you know how beautiful and intense it can be and how much satisfaction being a trainer can bring when you do your job properly. Over the years we have been able to demonstrate that we can be professional role models for our students. These have been years full of challenges and successes through which together we have been able to validate and strengthen the position of our institution in the medical community around the world and for this I am proud to be part of the academic team of UMF Craiova.
Seen from the outside, UMF Craiova is an institution that trains medical professionals. It's not wrong, but it's an understatement. Only when you become part of the UMF community do you truly realise what it represents. It is difficult to grasp the significance of this institution. Sure, we can talk about results, value, place in the academic community… When you are part of UMF Craiova, whether you are a student or an actor involved in the educational process, you realize that it is much more complex to summarize in a few words the educational experience given by our institution. Because yes, here at UMF Craiova we share education in any form using the most diverse means. We share education because all members of the community learn from each other. Education in any field is not a unidirectional and time-limited process, but a constant and circular one.
At UMF Craiova we learn to be good professionals and educate ourselves to remain people in our professions.
The declaration of principles of the academic year 2022 - 2023 at UMF Craiova was: Get involved! And we got involved. All of us. Professors, students, together, shoulder to shoulder, we managed to face extraordinary challenges, which brought more value not only to the institution, but also to us, as people, as professionals. We can talk about intense scientific work, about the role of the doctor in the community, about lives saved or about human connection, success, empathy. There have been many extraordinary activities, with a lot of involvement, in which substantial efforts have been made by all those involved, but where we have lived some unique experiences, for which I thank and congratulate you.
Dear students, I wish you an exceptional academic year!
Be curious, be involved, energetic, creative, thirsty for knowledge and do not let any obstacles get you down! This is the only way to achieve your goals! We are responsible for your training, but you are solely responsible for what you will become. Being a health professional is not easy, but if you wanted it to be easy you weren't here today!
As Rector of UMF Craiova, but especially as a professor, I wish for all of us, colleagues and students, an academic year that represents much more than a chronological journey through time. I wish that we manage to maintain high standards in the educational process and keep the same institutional values based on loyalty and respect.
Prof. PhD Dan-Ionuț GHEONEA,
Rector
University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova