Dear Students,

Dear Colleagues,

Together we enter a new stage of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" Bucharest, a stage that, as I thought and outlined in my managerial program, I dedicate to development and modernization, trajectories that only together we will be able to configure them to what academic performance really means. I consider this desideratum to be a defining one for our entire academic community and I believe that it will always focus on three main principles: Initiation, Evolution, Excellence.

As I write these sincere thoughts, our academic community, Romanian society and our entire planet are facing one of the greatest epidemiological crises, COVID-19, an episode that I firmly believe we will be able to overcome in the shortest time, without leaving us overwhelmed by the complexity of this huge medical equation that today presents a multitude of unknowns. Here that in this cruel war, in which the enemy is still an invisible one, on the front line are our students, residents and teachers, giving a clear demonstration of solidarity and empathy towards our fellow sufferers.

All the more today, we must proudly remember that our University is named after its founder, the illustrious general, doctor and Romanian pharmacist, of French origin, Carol Davila, who, rightly, can be considered the main pillar of the founding of the School of Romanian medicine. Referring to Carol Davila, his biography and the defining role he played for our University mainly and in Romanian medicine in general and making an arc over time, I am fully convinced that, if in the nineteenth century, the young doctoral student Davila was actively involved in combating and extinguishing the cholera epidemic that broke out in Champagne and Cher -1849, our entire academic community will continue to follow his example of dedication and professionalism, through full involvement in the fight against the 21st century pandemic generated by COVID-19.

Dear friends, as you know very well, just two days after taking over the position of Rector, already under the pressure of the epidemiological onset, we took, together with the Board of Directors of the University, the decision to interrupt university courses and to reconfigure the activity teaching. Under the burden of this epidemiological crisis, you have all demonstrated, both students and teachers, that we are not only an elite academic community, but also that we are a strong family. Only by regrouping and repositioning ourselves in the face of any obstacle will we be able to achieve stability and academic performance.

If in my managerial plan that you can find and analyze at any time on the institutional site, one of my priorities and ours is the digitization project, the current times seem to have been one step ahead of us, which forces us to emphasize the management plans in this respect. The overall development of our University does not only involve this aspect, and the priorities are multiple and I am convinced that our study programs, university and postgraduate system, specializations, masters, doctorates, primaries and medical scientific research at UMF "Carol Davila" will continue the upward curve. An eloquent example in this regard is the latest positioning of UMF "Carol Davila" in the Top Shanghai 500 (position 201-300) in the Medical Science segment, a position more than remarkable in the context in which we surpassed major universities in the world. which counts many more faculties of different profiles, and this performance is entirely due to you.

Dear students, even if today we are forced to resort to an atypical curriculum, it being a transitory one, always be aware that only engaging in such a continuous effort, by accumulating information, through intense study, discipline and devotion, you will achieve the performances you dreamed of and that you want to achieve one day! Succeeding in saving lives means first of all the deep acquisition of knowledge and total involvement in what represents medical scientific research and all this dressed in passion, dedication and devotion. In this sense, throughout the history of UMF “Carol Davila” the examples are multiple and, without making any specific remarks today, I leave you to discover them, each one of them, in the long road of your improvement. Quoting the great historian Nicolae Iorga who said that "a people who do not know their history is like a child who does not know their parents" I reiterate your invitation to use ourselves to know our forerunners in the medical world.

Certainly, our main mission, of the university teachers and of the entire auxiliary staff, is to guide your steps towards knowledge, to support you constantly in your professional approaches and last but not least to offer you optimal and superimposable conditions with those of your colleagues in the world's great university centers. In this sense, in my managerial commitment you will find a multitude of academic and administrative development projects, which I am convinced that together, in this 2020-2024 mandate, we will succeed in implementing them successfully. In any real competition, regardless of the field of activity developed, the key to success is the human resource, and its continuous support on its way to performance must be the main goal. Let's not forget that the positioning of the Romanian school on the world map of medicine is primarily due to the achievements of our forefathers and, in addition, any of the Romanian doctors who are on duty today in various medical or scientific research centers around the world enjoy great respect.

Furthermore, the Romanian medical school enjoys an enormous appreciation internally and externally, confirming and reconfirming the native genius of the Romanian people and if, in UMF “Carol Davila”, the Nobel Prize winner, Professor George Emil Palade is a real example, please follow him constantly and maybe one day some of you will reach the same peaks of performance or maybe you will even manage to overcome them.

As for us, the university teachers from UMF “Carol Davila”, we assure you once again of our full support and our full consideration both for the choice made to access the “art of healing that theoretically has no limits” so as the philosopher Petre Țuțea defined medicine, as well as for the performances that I am convinced you will achieve.

From the position of Rector in which I am today, a position that honors me and at the same time obliges me, and for which I want to thank once again the entire academic community of UMF "Carol Davila" I assure you that, regardless of obstacles and vicissitudes of times, you will have real support in me and more than that, a true friend.

RECTOR,

Professor Viorel Jinga