Who are we?
A community of students and young healthcare professionals who offer our peers an integrated view on research and clinical practice, professional and personal growth, for the benefit of our patients.
Our vision
A generation of open-minded, responsible and proactive young healthcare professionals motivated to create initiatives that positively impact our education and healthcare system.
Our mission
To provide medical students with access to international mentors, research directions, and strengthen local networks – while creating learning opportunities for our dynamic team of volunteers.
Our Journey
Promoting our local mentors' achievements in science and medicine, the beginning of a proactive mindset
Raising awareness of the importance of communication with professionals from related fields
Connecting the professional side with the personal one in order to explore the medical doctor’s role in our society
Emphasizing the need to actively get involved in creating our own educational opportunities
Exploring our generation’s role in the future of medicine, our abilities and the challenges which define us
Learning to value our community's resources, alongside with expanding the network of knowledge
A collaborative view of the pandemic response with medical doctors, psychologists, public health professionals and patients
Readjusting our personal and professional perspective, reconnecting with others and with our personal priorities during a time of transition
We explored how to stay in touch with the 'me'-the sense of purpose and ambition-in order to best contribute to the 'we'-the teamwork that is standard in patient care
Last Year's Edition
Recent times remind us that in any profession, humanity comes first.
As healthcare professionals, we grow by constantly interacting with our colleagues and patients. Connection gives us a powerful voice and propels scientific advances. But does it make us lose or find ourselves?
How do you stay in touch with the ‘me’ - your sense of purpose and ambition - in order to best contribute to the ‘we’ - the teamwork that is standard patient care?
We invite you to explore how we make sense of the way we work together to best serve our patients at HEART 2022 on May 5-8th!
Panels
The Multidisciplinary Team in Oncolgy
*Romanian-language session
"Cancer" - probably the diagnosis that patients fear the most, and at the same time the one where it makes the most difference to have an efficient team, in which your oncologist, radiotherapist, surgeon, genetician and nurses manage the disease and make decisions together to improve the quality of life.
If you ever wondered what a stepwise, integrated approach to an oncological case should be, what it's like to have the life of such patients in your hands, and how it feels to be able to help them, join us on May 5th, for our panel discussion, where we will tackle the multidisciplinary management of breast cancer, together with doctors from three different specialties.
From the importance of collaborating in multi-specialty teams, to showing empathy and providing comfort, guidance and transparency to our patient, our speakers will cover essential topics regarding best patient care, both from a medical and a human point of view.
Speakers:
Maximilian Vlad Muntean, MD, PhD
Plastic Surgery Reconstructive Microsurgery, "Prof. Dr. I. Chiricuță” Institute of Oncology
Martin Daniela, MD, PhD
“Prof. Dr.I. Chiricuţă" Oncology Institute Radiotherapy Department, Coordinator of the Radiotherapy Laboratory
Pârvu Lidia, MD
Specialist in Medical Oncology-Senology, “Prof. Dr.I. Chiricuţă" Oncology Institute and Centromed Oncosan Specialist
Burnout and bullying in the medical world
*Romanian-language session
Your work environment can greatly influence how you feel about your job and this applies in the medical field as well. Having good working practices, being in a suportive atmosphere, staff and management trusting each other; these are the most important things we need to be productive in our workplace.
So, what can we do in order to achieve these goals and how can we change the actual status of the healtchare work environment?
Our guests are able to answer all these questions and, moreover, to give us a glimpse on what a healthy workspace should look like. If you're interested in what you should expect from your workplace and what could be expected from you in order to create a positive atmosphere at the hospital, clinic or lab, join us and our three panelists for this plenary session on May 5th.
Speakers:
Pediatrics Clinic 1, UMF Cluj
Pediatric Psychiatry Clinic, UMF Cluj
founder of the programme Psy4Life
Speakers
Prof Wg Cdr Ankur Pandya, known for his experience as a military plastic surgeon, voluntary work, expertise in mentorship, and numerous publications and awards in the medical field, will share with us what it’s like to be a plastic surgeon during war and explore the impact of a doctor’s humanity on the patient’s status.
Being on over 44 international humanitarian missions and four wartime deployments, his voluntary activities include working with Operation Smile, one of the largest surgical volunteer-based nonprofits that improves the health and dignity of patients with cleft conditions, helping them to better breathe, eat, speak and live lives of greater quality and confidence. He set up the Directorate of Quality Assurance for the organisation, which he led for five years.
His academic achievements and titles reflect his mastery in the field: he is Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Southampton University School of Medicine, as well as at Portsmouth University, and Visiting Prof of Plastic Surgery in Romania. He is the Associate dean for the defence Deanery and a Research Fellow in the Academic Department of Global Healthcare Engagement. He is on the faculty of and an examiner for the Conflict and Catastrophe Course. He is the national and European Boards examiner in both plastic and hand surgery, and is the Training Programme Director for Plastic Surgery in the Thames Valley (Oxford) and Wessex Deaneries.
At HEART 2022, Wg Cdr Pandya will explain the impact of the various human factors that impact on patient well being. In his second talk, he will share his experience as a military plastic surgeon in war, touching upon both what it means to be a plastic surgeon and the implications of war and its effects on people. Prof Wg Cdr Pandya will also hold a workshop regarding triage and mass casualty management, an eye-opening theme that will offer participants the insights of an expert on dealing with medical crises efficiently.
Carmen Lefaucheur received her qualification as Nephrologist in 2004 from Paris Descartes University. She defended her PhD in Biology and Biotechnology in 2012. She obtained the “International Transplant Society New Key Opinion Leader Award” in 2010 and the “Prix de la Chancellerie des Universités de Paris” award in 2014. Her research aims to develop a translational research model in organ transplantation based on a multidisciplinary approach which may connect immunological, histological, molecular and clinical knowledge.
She is co-Head of the Paris Translational Research Center for Organ Transplantation of which she is founding member since 2008. She is director of Transplant Immunology Research Program at the Paris Translational Research Center for Organ Transplantation. She is director of the Federation of Organ Transplantation in Paris North.
She has focused on the clinical relevance of HLA antibodies and their different mechanistic pathways leading to allograft antibody-mediated rejection, thereby addressing the heterogeneity of its phenotypic expression and eventually investigating new tailored potential therapies in transplant populations. She is principal investigator of national and international clinical trials dedicated to prophylaxis and treatment of rejection in kidney transplantation.
Carmen Lefaucheur is involved in the French Speaking Society of Transplantation, in the Banff Conference Scientific Committee and in the Transplantation Society steering committee for guidelines on the treatment of antibody-mediated rejection. Nephrologist at the Nephrology and Kidney Transplantation Department, Saint-Louis Hospital-APHP, Paris, France and Professor of Nephrology at Paris Diderot University, France.
At HEART 2022 she will talk about precision medicine in organ transplantation.
Dr. Newton Howard is the founder of ni2o, Inc., a health tech company developing novel, artificial-intelligence driven brain-computer interfaces to treat a wide range of debilitating neurological disorders and to improve cognitive performance. His career spans academia, the U.S. military and the private sector. A prolific scientific author and inventor, he is highly skilled in moving research from the lab to military and commercial applications, including technology you may use daily such as wireless hot spots, Google Earth and Google Translate.
Dr. Howard holds advanced degrees in Mathematics (Oxford), Cognitive Informatics (Sorbonne), Neurosurgery (Oxford) and a Doctorate of Medical Sciences (Sorbonne). He has made significant contributions to the fields of neuroscience, linguistics and national defense, including the Physics of Cognition (a mathematical framework for modeling complex medical, economic and security equilibriums), Intention Awareness (a theory for predictive modeling of naturalistic systems), Mood State Indicators (an algorithm to model mental processes involved in human speech to predict emotional states), ADAMA (a method of autonomously identifying and contextually understanding metaphors in language), the Functional Code Unit (a method for translating neurological signaling to logical data structures) and most recently, the Brain Code (a multivariate analytical model designed to extract emergent properties of the brain’s neuronal system).
Dr. Howard is a professor at Oxford and Georgetown. He directs the Computational Neurosciences Lab at Oxford and the Synthetic Intelligence Lab at MIT. He founded and sits on the Board of two nonprofits: the Howard Brain Sciences Foundation, which funds innovative research initiatives to improve our understanding of the human brain and advance the diagnosis and treatment of neurological conditions; and C4ADS, which is dedicated to providing data-driven analysis and evidence-based reporting on global conflict and transnational security issues.
His speech at HEART 2022 will explore the future of brain and neurotech.
Sorana Stănescu is a reporter and editor for the independent media organization DoR (Decât o Revistă), after working as a reporter and producer for the national TV broadcaster, TVR, for 7 year. She studied television journalism and she was the producer for several live storytelling events nationwide.
She has won several international awards and fellowships for investigative journalism and, over the past year. she covered the issue of health care worker-burnout, the role of family doctors in the healthcare ecosystem and has written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a patient, she often felt the need to create much-needed communication pathways with her doctors. As the daughter of two physicians, she saw with her own eyes how professional cynicism becomes a defense mechanism. And, as a journalist, she learnt about what makes health care workers cut corners, but also what makes them feel proud about their work. She thinks the silver lining for all these different realities could be true, thoroughly documented stories, as means to better listen to one another and to finding solutions for an empathic and functional healthcare system.
Her presentation at HEART 2022 will cover the role of narratives in doctors’ lives and in the healthcare system’s effectiveness.
Rosamaria is a dancer and artist, Dance Historian and Critic, Roma Scholar, Sociologist, Flamenco Historian and Peace Activist. Her PhD is in Sociology with a focus on Roma women, intersectionality, dialogic feminism and communicative methodologies. Rosamaria is involved in various EU funded projects which aim to make education accessible to vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities and sits on various Boards: Roma Coventry Project (UK), Drom Kotar Mestipen Roma Women’s Association (Spain), AWA Dance women and leadership, among others.
At the moment she is an artist-researcher at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research based in the UK. She is also an independent artist, filmmaker, curator and teacher who has organised various festivals and exhibitions. She has started her own production company, RosaSenCis Film Production Co., which aims to create dance films and documentaries that capture stories and reflect embodied traditions that might otherwise be lost. Her film work also considers and embeds inclusive practices and strives to be as accessible as possible. She has designed and managed major EU-Funded projects on a number of topics from disability, cultural heritage, dance, ethical practices, Roma and minoritised groups as well as equality and diversity within archives. Rosa organises the Hip Hop Talking Back: artists and researcher events and has also serves as a consultant for various Heritage institutions. In 2021 she co-created a children’s book with grassroots Roma families that exploed themes of climate justice. Rosa sits on the editorial teams for academic Journals and those include the Journal for Embodied Practices, International Journal of Romani Studies and OneDance UK’s HOTFOOT Online magazine.
Under-served groups can be considered to be populations that often suffer social and political exclusion that can lead to healthcare burdens where services struggle to respond to the varying needs of the diverse communities. Systems of power and biases exist within traditional healthcare research, academia, medical publications, and actual practice. Improving and including representation of under-served groups in trials, medical research and in other areas linked to healthcare, is not a one-size fits all speedy process. Bespoke methods are needed and Communicative Methodology and dialogic processes allow for people from excluded backgrounds to engage with healthcare providers.
Her speech at HEART 2022 titled Curated Health Conversations will reflect on activities and projects that discuss issues of engaging with vulnerable communities, using as a case study the Roma community. Staging meaningful conversations and highlighting research methods such communicative methodology and dialogic feminism, the talk will explore activities and projects that have been used to improve representation of underrepresented groups in health research, activities and practices. The talk is designed to draw out discussion on the discoveries made, challenges tackled and the lessons learned in developing meaningful healthcare incentives with Roma families.
Twitter: @RosaSenCis
Hani Al-Qadhi MD is a FRCSC Senior Consultant Trauma Surgeon at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman.He did his Surgical training at McGill University and University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, followed by a Trauma Surgery Fellowship at UBC. He occupied the position of Head of Surgery at SQUH 2012-2020 and the Chairman of the General Surgery Residency Program from 2010-2021.
At the SQUH, Dr. Hani Al-Qadhi performed laparoscopic surgeries for neck, abdomen, lap hernia repair, lap splenectomy, and so on. Interestingly, he was an actor in Oman TV, a national athlete with interest in soccer, squash, tennis, swimming and chess.
His talk at HEART 2022, Women in Surgery, addresses the Omani Experience in changing the gender bias in General surgery specialization and the effect of that experience on the future of Surgery and surgical training.
If there’s something that we should enhance in our personal journey, it will undoubtedly be empathy. Even though they are critical, human connection and interaction are undervalued, particularly in the medical field.
During this year’s edition, HEART invites you to break the stigma of mental disorders. We are delighted to announce that Professor Norman Sartorius, an eminent figure in the field of international mental health, will be one of our guests. Among his achievements are collaborative studies on a variety of topics (ranging from schizophrenia, depression comorbid with diabetes, quality of life, HIV/AIDS), training programs, and policy documents.
Dr. Sartorius studied Medicine in Zagreb and subsequently trained in psychiatry and neurology after which he also completed studies and obtained a doctorate of science in psychology. He started working with the WHO in 1967, serving in Southeast Asia and other regions. He became Director of WHO Division of Mental Health in 1977, a position he held for more than 20 years.
We’re looking forward to his participation at HEART 2022, where he will join us via teleconference to talk about the perspectives in psychiatry regarding fighting the stigma of mental health.
Andrei C. Miu is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Behavioral Genetics, and Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the Department of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He has a B.A. in Psychology, a M.Sc. in Neuroscience and Molecular Medicine, and a Ph.D. in Psychology, with an interdisciplinary thesis on emotion and cognition.
His research has approached individual differences in emotion, their biological and genetic underpinnings, and their role in cognitive performance and risk of psychopathology. His recent work has focused on the involvement of emotion regulation as a mechanism in the association between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology, using behavioral, neurophysiological, neuroendocrine and genetic methods.
Dr. Miu has received research fellowships and awards from Fulbright, Go8 Future Research Leaders in Australia, SEMPRE UK, among others, and has been PI of multiple grants. He served as Vice-President of the National Neuroscience Society of Romania, and national representative in the Governing Council of the International Brain Research Organization, and has been in the editorial boards of several international journals including Emotion, Scientific Reports – Nature, Translational Neuroscience, and Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. He has also initiated the Romanian Twin Registry, the first of its kind in Romania.
His latest book is Genes, Brain and Emotions: Interdisciplinary and Translational Perspectives, co-edited with K.-P. Lesch and J. R. Homberg, and published by Oxford University Press in 2019.
Understanding how the brain supports cognition and behavior in health and disease has been one of the greatest challenges of neuroscience. Despite enormous methodological progress in recent decades, and extensive data on numerous aspects of brain structure and function, an integrative view of the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and behavior is still lacking. His lecture at HEART 2022 will explore the current status of this problem in neuroscience, and recent developments that may offer promise.