University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș

University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureș
Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie (Romanian)
Orvosi és Gyógyszerészeti Egyetem (Hungarian)
Latin: Universitas Medicinae et Pharmaciae Marisiensis
Former names
 Institute of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureș
Established 1945, 1948
Rector Prof. Dr. Leonard Azamfirei
Administrative staff
 over 400
Students over 4,000
Location Târgu Mureș, Romania
Campus Urban
Nickname UMF Tîrgu Mureș
MOGYE
Website www.umftgm.ro

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureș (Romanian: Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie din Tîrgu Mureș, or UMF Tîrgu Mureș; Hungarian: Orvosi és Gyógyszerészeti Egyetem, or MOGyE) is a public university in Târgu Mureș, Romania, founded in 1945. The university is one of the 6 traditional medical schools in Romania beside Cluj, Bucharest, Timișoara, Iași and Craiova, all being founded before the 1989 Romanian revolution.

History

Medical education in Târgu Mureș (also spelled as Tîrgu Mureș) began in 1945 as a branch of the Faculty of Medicine of the Bolyai University of Cluj Napoca. After the foundation of this university, the Faculties of Philology, Philosophy, Law, Economics and Natural Sciences started their activity in Cluj Napoca, and the Faculty of Medicine was moved to Târgu Mureș, where it operated between 1945 and 1948.

In 1948, after the Education Reform, the Medical and Pharmaceutical Institute was founded, an independent institute with the following faculties: Medicine, Paediatrics, Hygiene, Dentistry and Pharmacy. Between 1951 and 1958 it comprised three faculties: General Medicine, Paediatrics and Pharmacy. In 1958-1959 the Faculty of Paediatrics was transformed into a department; and from 1960-l961 the department of Dentistry started operating again, becoming a faculty in the academic year 1965-1966.

The Faculty of Pharmacy ceased its activity between 1986 and 1990. In 1991, the Institute was given the name of University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș. By Decree 800/ 1965 and by the Order of the Minister of Education, the Institute of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș gained the right to award doctoral degrees in medicine (7 professors were appointed as doctoral supervisors).

The University carries on its activity as a university with a structure and specialities that are accredited by the law. The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș functions as a public institution with legal status, being the only university in the field of healthcare where teaching is in Romanian, Hungarian, and recently, in English. Graduates of study programmes can benefit from different levels of academic degrees: bachelor, master’s, doctoral. Their area of specialisation according to the division of academic knowledge and professional division of labour is also different.

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș, a famous academic institution, is accessible to all Romanian and foreign citizens without any discrimination and as a centre of excellence which provides knowledge and competence in various forms: initial and continuous training of specialists, research, expertise and consultancy in its field of competence. In the development of the university, the educational and research components have always been prevalent in training physicians, dentists, pharmacists, midwives, and nurses. From the methodological and practical aspect of healthcare, the university represents the pivot in the district. As a renowned university, the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș is actively involved in joint competition of education and research internationalisation.

Today’s educational market conditions (increase of offers, globalisation, new forms of education, transforming universities from elitist institutions into high education institutions for everybody, etc.), turn the quality of services offered by a university into a major factor in determining its competitiveness and attractiveness. By its quality programmes and a strict observation of their achievement, by periodical assessments, it is expected that the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș is able to compete with other universities at national or international level. In line with the Bologna Declaration, we work on the elaboration of criteria and methodologies on quality assurance comparable to those of prestigious universities in Europe. This is the only way to gain recognition of the value of diplomas issued by us anywhere in Europe and in the context of European unification to face competition with other universities on the continent.

An inspiring Place

Situated on a hill that overlooks the city, an imposing building offers a unique perspective of the place – The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureş. Being considered, for a long time, a heritage of the city, the prestigious building represents a symbol of the high academic and cultural values of our region. From the entrance, the overwhelming beauty of the place is perfectly complemented by the architectural harmony of the main building.

The dendrological park that surrounds the University on all sides protects it from the agitation of the town as an island of greenery perfectly integrated in the surrounding vegetation. Behind the building, a well-attended botanical garden is a place for recreation, serving also as the base material for students of the Faculty of Pharmacy, a unique advantage that sets it apart from other medical training centers in Romania. Here the student has the possibility to study both aromatic plants, with their distinct scent, as well as the toxic ones, which remain however a priceless source of active ingredients. The herb garden complements the landscape that seems a world removed from a story.

Hidden from the eyes of the passersby, the University laboratories (located in the main building as well as in the annex ones) offer a surprising shift from the external beauty of the building that has the emblem of time, to the dynamic reality of the twenty-first century technology. The Integrated Dentistry Centre is a modern, practical place which impresses you with its beautiful and sober architecture, appropriate for the general appearance of the entire academic complex but also by the futuristic and cutting edge equipment, the dream of every aspiring dental student.

New modern buildings, such as the new Faculty of Pharmacy and the new Center of Research, are designed to provide excellent learning facilities and highest standard innovative research infrastructure for both the students and the teaching staff, in a modern architectural complex.

To all this, the vast Sports base is added-one of the most modern sports facilities in Romania, including tennis courts, lighted football fields,a recently opened SPA center with a large swimming pool, and a gym hall. All these make the University Sports Club a facility unique of this kind in Romania and contribute to an unforgettable experience - studentship at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mures.

Mission and values

We belong to a university tradition that has an inheritance worthy to be transmitted to the successors. The mission of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureș is to generate and transfer knowledge to the society through:

An outstanding medical and pharmaceutical university

Medical education in Târgu Mureș began in 1945, when the Faculty of Medicine was founded as a branch of the Bolyai University of Cluj Napoca. In 1948, after the Education Reform, this was transformedinto the Medical and Pharmaceutical Institute of Tirgu Mures, and in 1991, the Institute was given the name of University of Medicine and Pharmacy of TîrguMureș.

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș functions as a public institution with legal status, being the only university in the field of healthcare where teaching is in Romanian, Hungarian, and English. Graduates of study programmes can benefit from different levels of academic degrees: bachelor, master’s, doctoral. The University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureș, a famous academic institution, is accessible to all Romanian and foreign citizens without any discrimination and as a centre of excellence which provides knowledge and competence in various forms: initial and continuous training of specialists, research, expertise and consultancy in its field of competence.

The years past since the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mures has been founded has meant the necessary time to define its own identity. By tradition, it has become a landmark in the Romanian medical life. Today, it is a historical witness of hard work, commitment, responsibility and dynamism, put at the service of several generations of specialists in the field of health.

The quality of medical education in our university is a defining feature, an emergent property resulting from design, integrityand resources which promotes and encourages a policy of quality.

Quality and competence of European medical education

A physician or a pharmacist should be able to answer to two questions : why? and how? If the first question is particularly a theoretical one, appealing to the information gatheredover time, and to the ability to integrate and synthesize, the reply to the second one implies a quantifiable demonstration of the ability to do what one knows. And that is acquired through practice, through repetition.

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy initiated a process of curriculum reform as far as the practical and clinical training is concerned so that students get a clear view on what they need to learn to do over the years of study. In this regard, a Case-based learning module has been initiated in the clinical internships and a Simulation and Medical Skills Centre was open within the University, which has three departments: Medical Skills, Medical Simulation and Standardized Patient. All these measures had a substantial contribution to increase the quality of medical education provided to students, in accordance with the highest European standards for medical education.

A component of this endeavor is the introduction of the Notebook of Practical Skills for the faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy. The notebook is intended to be a portfolio of maneuvers and techniques that the student has learned and exercised during his/her internships and practical lab works. This tool accompanies the student and is a part of his/her assessment upon graduation. The printed version of the notebook is complemented by an online mobile application that any student of the University can download and install on an electronic communication device.

The application is just one of the features of a more complex e-UMF platform recently implemented, a complex digital web-based tool that provides numerous facilities for the students and for the academic staff, including online applications for admission, online library, access to University Management System, online access to scientific journals and articles, online handling of administrative forms and a very complex e-learning platform, which provides the students a very user-friendly online learning system with access to books, printed lecture notes and powerpoint presentations of the courses.

Research

Health is a priority of European research. Currently, multi- disciplinary and intersectoral research projects from the recently opened Horizon 2020 programme are aimed at improving the overall quality of life by preserving health: improving health and ageing in good health.

To ensure a high level of health protection, to better under- stand human diseases and discover new remedies, our uni- versity joined in the activities and strategies of European re- search in health, targeting different directions: biomedicine, genomics and biotechnology. Starting from the fundamental idea that a university with- out research is only a school, scientific research, an issue of increasing complexity, has been and still is the main objec-tive of our University, involving teaching staff, doctoral students, residents or students.

Our University has made financial investments to support research, developing the material background, fostering human resources. Currently there are flexible and dynamic interdisciplinary research teams, whose leaders are role models for young researchers for thedoctoral students and the undergraduate ones. The University organizes an annual internal competition and provides funding for two types of research grants: one intended for young researchers and the other for multidisciplinary research teams.

The University has research laboratories with advanced equipment. The Center of Advanced Medical and Pharmaceutical Research, projected on a total surface of 4.092 square meters on 5 levels, from a budget of 10.47 million EUR, represents an example of a high quality research infrastructure on international level, serving as a reference center for both basic and clinical medical research in this country. The modern facilities in this unique research complex include a DNA and plasma bank, that will collect and store biologic materials and stem cells from patients, serving as a unique source of data for future research, and several high-technology laboratories with latest generation equipments: immunology, chromatography and mass spectrometry, laser flow citometry, confocal microscopy, molecular biology, genetics, advanced cardiac imaging, metabolomics and others. The results of our highest standard scientific activity is reflected by publications in prestigious journals, participations in grants/ research contracts (CNCSIS, CEEX, Partnerships, Capacities, FP7, PN II or IDEI modules), innovative patents in the field and participation in national and international scientific meetings in all medical areas. All these various and complex aspects of ongoing research overlap in our university and sustain each other to form a core value in research.

Our University publishes 3 international scientific journals indexed in prestigious databases: Acta Medica Marisiensis, Romanian Review of Laboratory Medicine and The Journal of Critical Care Medicine, providing the readers with the most recent advances in the field of different medical specialties. The international editorial team of these journals, represented by European and international scientific experts who are world-wide recognized in their field of research, is carefully monitoring not only the scientific level of the articles published in these journals, but also the adherence to ethics standard as defined in international conventions and to the publication standards as defined in the COPE Code of Conduct, in order to ensure a high integrity in scientific publication.

International cooperation with prestigious medical universities from different European countries had a substantial contribution to the development of scientific research and evidence-based medicine, in the same time with the initiation and development of a curricular reform process in our university. We have a close collaboration with several international experts in the field of scientific research and medical edu- cation, who are deeply involved in our projects, bringing international expertise and knowledge into our academic community.

Starting with 2013 the PhD School from our University launched the Master in Scientific Research, unique of its kind in Romania, in which the graduates have the opportunity to learn how to conduct a scientific research according to the most rigorous international rules and regulations, how to write a successful application for research grants and how to disseminate the results of their research on a large scale.

Faculties

University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureş

Faculty of Medicine

After the dramatic political, economical, and social changes that took place in Romanian in 1989, the university has undergone significant changes in its image and organization.

The spiritual life has become more dynamic, the logistic support a lot more substantial, and the methods have been improved and modernized. Each member of the teaching staff has benefited by participation in international conventions, trainings in new techniques, in a Western European country or the United States.

In a large degree, owed to the great raise in the number of admissions of foreign students, the Faculty of Medicine of UMF has become an international institution, with a significant increase in the number of students registering in a post-graduate program.

Alumni

References

    Coordinates: 46°33′18″N 24°34′52″E / 46.55500°N 24.58111°E / 46.55500; 24.58111

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