Europe | Romanian doctor training

Romania is now a magnet for the world’s medical students

But Romanian doctors are leaving

Students during a lesson at the Medicine and Pharmacy University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Photograph: Reuters

After struggling to land a place on a medicine course in France, Louise Louvet reluctantly heeded a friend’s advice: give Romania a chance. “I thought there was no way in hell I’d move there,” she says, now a sixth-year medical student at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca. A visit to the campus had quickly changed her mind. Crowds of international students and the school’s focus on practical care and teaching offered a welcome contrast to the dour rote-learning she had experienced in France. “After that, I said let’s do it.”

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Pluses and minuses”

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