A young neurosurgeon specializing in complex interventions, who recently completed a training internship in the Netherlands, makes a call to refer patients who require complicated neurosurgical operations, assuring them that they will be in good hands.
Doctor Ciobotaru (st.) calls for patients who need help to contact him PHOTO: FB
Neurosurgeon Georgian Ciobotaru, specialist doctor at the Bucharest Military Hospital, is one of the professionals who relates in a special way with his patients. He formed a community of almost 70,000 people on Facebook, and on the website www.doctorciobotaru.ro he answers directly, daily, to those who address him and ask for his professional opinion. In July of this year, the hospital presented the result of a complex intervention, doctor Ciobotaru being the one who, together with a team of specialists, performed the operation.
Georgian Ciobotaru decided, a few months ago, to follow a specialization course with a Romanian neurosurgeon who practices in the Netherlands, where he performs particularly complicated neurosurgical interventions. Doctor Ciobotaru tells how he came to train in the Netherlands, gives details about what he learned to do there, so that in the end he asks for the help of the community to succeed in putting his knowledge to good use and giving as many patients as possible the chance to to be treated “free and without charge”.
“I work as a neurosurgeon specialist at the state and I don’t regret anything”
“It’s been a few days and it’s been 3 years since I’ve been working as a neurosurgeon specialist at the state and I don’t regret anything. I was allowed to operate whatever I thought I could safely do, and not only was there no hindrance, but I was supported whenever I wanted to carry out operations never before seen in the hospital or in the country. The plan was never to prove to someone that I know how to operate, but to operate honestly, not making mistakes out of pride.
pat the beginning of the year, a number of patients with skull base tumors were giving me the confidence to operate on them even though I didn’t know how to do it. No matter how much I read, no matter how much I practiced on corpses, I didn’t trust myself, so I was forced to refuse them. Since I did not know that there was anyone in the country who frequently performs such operations, I went abroad and asked for help from Dr. Victor Volovici, a Romanian neurosurgeon who completed all his post-graduate training in the Netherlands, where he stayed to work. He stayed there with a broken heart leaving his country, but he never forgot where he came from, so now he offers his help from abroad by changing the system from 2000 km away. doctor Giorgian Ciobotaru begins his revelation on his Facebook account.
The neurosurgeon tells that he didn’t even dare to hope that he could train with Dr. Victor Volovici, because “the difference between us professionally was too great.”
“What should I look for there? I just asked him to give me a name of a surgeon to learn from. One more of my level, like that. But, just like in Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it will be given to you (…)”, he offered me a place in their side for 2 months. I was going to be the first to be accepted to the complex brain surgery course, vascular and skull base surgery course, organized in the Erasmus Hospital in Rotterdam by the V. Volovici and R. Dammers team”, continued doctor Ciobotaru.
He stayed with Dr. Volovici’s team for two months, discussing and observing, the doctor says, every detail of the operations “which I don’t know has been carried out in Romania so far”: cavernous sinus meningiomas, trigeminal schwannomas via transcavernous approach, bulky PICA aneurysms with PICA-PICA bypass and subsequent clipping, etc.
At the end of the internship, during which he was treated as a colleague of theirs, he also received two valuable gifts: a microscope with which he could perform neurosurgical interventions of great precision (which he announced that he would donate to the hospital for you could train residents and specialists) and the promise that he would have the personal support of dr. Volovici, who is willing to come to Romania, for future operations (if the Ministry of Health will give Dr. Volovici the diploma obtained in the Netherlands).
Back in the country he had his first disappointment instead. “I admit that I tried, timidly, to offer to go with him (ed. – with the Zeiss S3 microscope, estimated at a value of about 10,000 euros, second-hand) to various hospitals in the country, which do not have a microscope , and operate there, even leave it for a while, but my offer showed no interest”the doctor also wrote.
“I have no patients”
At the end of the post, specialist neurosurgeon Giorgian Ciobotaru also appeals to those who follow him, requesting that patients who need complex interventions be directed to the hospital where he works. The doctor explains on the one hand what he manages to do in the hospital where he works, and on the other he draws attention to the fact that patients often end up in hospitals with inferior equipment and benefit from surgical interventions performed according to old techniques.
“Now comes my pain: I have no patients. Somehow, even though I created a free website where patients can ask for opinions for free, even though this page has almost 69,000 followers, even though I’m back in the country and will start again in January to operate for free and without pay to the state, even though I’m always proud of the results of my operations on over 500 patients so far (perhaps a rich repertoire for a young specialist)… doctors do not refer enough cases to me. I feel that it is in vain that I manage to discharge patients in less than 48 hours after surgery, without dressings, with unshaven hair and without deficits, in vain that I do biopsies so easily and painlessly that patients do not even need anesthesia and the second day I am at home and that I do complex operations for nothing (skull base meningiomas, vestibular schwannomas/acoustic neuronomas, epilepsy surgery, aneurysms, etc.) if the patients they are directed from the beginning to other hospitals, some with inferior facilities, with wards that have not been renovated recently or with doctors who have been using the same technique since I was playing with a ball in the schoolyard”, says the doctor.
The help he is asking for is to refer patients in complicated situations who can be operated on here in the country, with the support of ultra-specialized doctors, such as doctor Volovici, who are willing to help. Doctor Ciobotaru also says that, within a legal framework, he even invites other doctors to participate in operations if they want.
“If you want to help me with something, talk to the doctors you know and ask them to get in touch with me. I answer anyone on the website (www.doctorciobotaru.ro) or by email ([email protected]) almost every evening. Moreover, I reward this trust with feedback about each patient – what we did, control imaging, what we are going to do, pictures of the scar, etc. In fact, in a legal framework, they invite doctors to participate in the operation if they want. In addition, it is a shame that we have one of the best neurosurgeons in Europe willing to operate on our Romanians in our country, and we send the difficult cases elsewhere: giant aneurysms, arterio-venous malformations, cavernous sinus meningiomas, cavum meningiomas Meckel, etc. So if you want to help me properly, share this post and let’s be a real support for the sick”the doctor concludes his call.
