Mission to Romania - Stanford Advanced Skin Center

romania 2007

Hayes Gladstone, MD, and volunteers on their Mission to Romania .

Mission to Romania

In April of 2007, Hayes B. Gladstone, MD, Associate Professor, Director of the Division of Dermatologic Surgery and Director of the Stanford Advanced Skin Care Center, led a group of 12 Mohs surgeons, nurses and histotechnologists on a volunteer surgical mission to Bucharest, Romania. This trip was sponsored by the Blade and Light Society, a nonprofit organization, which Gladstone and Northwestern colleague, Murad Alam, MD., founded in 2003 to promote humanitarian missions, research and collaboration among young dermatologic surgeons. Romania which is an emerging economy has a high rate of skin cancer, but only one self-trained Mohs surgeon in the country. While the Romania is rapidly developing, the majority of its population has limited access to health care.

Gladstone and other team members performed Mohs surgery for two days operating late into the night, and performing the subsequent facial reconstructions. Gladstone and his colleagues then taught a continuing medical education course on Mohs Surgery and facial reconstruction to an audience which included Romanian and Bulgarian dermatologists. Gladstone said,”This trip was very rewarding; the patients, many of whom had very large lesions benefited from our visit,” adding that “ our hosts were wonderfully hospitable, and Romania is truly a beautiful country with an exciting future.”

Gladstone said that he hopes to establish Blade and Light Dermatologic Surgery Centers at public hospitals in Bucharest and Santiago, Chile as well as Capetown, South Africa and Asia. Teams of dermatologic surgeons would operate on these underserved populations several times per year.

A thank you letter from Romania...

           "About 20 years ago, me, my wife and many others were students under Ceausescu’s communist regime. We tried to be informed as much as it was possible at that time, even though keeping in touch with the world was tough. We used to xerocopy medical textbooks that some of our Greek colleagues had. It wasn’t easy. Every xerox machine - and there were only a few - was registered with the police and the owners were usually reluctant to allow students to use it. But we succeeded in taking a look at how medicine (and dermatology) is practiced in the civilized world…and never dreamed to be less than 50 years closer.
            After Ceausescu’s fall, things improved and our library got some old dermatology journals and textbooks. Then we attended some dermatology meetings, established some contacts and made some friends. And we felt better knowing that we now had somebody to talk to about difficult cases.
            It was only last week that we had a chance to meet but also to see at work a team of great doctors and nurses, coming from thousands of miles away, to teach us. These doctors, left their jobs, families and businesses to come and operate for free some of our most unfortunate patients with skin cancers. Watching them, talking to them and learning from them was an extraordinary experience.
            Under Ceausescu’s regime our parents used to say: “Never give up hope. Communism will not last for ever and America will come and free us.” And we waited for Americans for so many years. When they eventually came, we realized that no matter how long we waited, it was worth it."

-Dr. Popscu
Bucharest, Romania