The future of Hungarian medical training is in danger in Romania

Ever since its foundation in 1945, there has been a slow but relentless effort to encumber Hungarian training at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureș/Marosvásárhely (Romania), an institution originally destined to train Hungarian doctors in their mother tongue. However, presently Hungarian students make up just 29% of the total number of students, while Hungarian teachers also constitute a mere one third in the university leadership. In practice, this makes it extremely difficult to safeguard teaching in Hungarian. It is worth mentioning that practical courses are already taught exclusively in Romanian.

Despite the fact that the Hungarian community has been asking for a separate and independent Hungarian faculty for years, instead of moving towards an acceptable solution, the situation seems to be deteriorating, as news surfaced in the past few days that the leadership of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy and those of the Petru Maior University, which is a purely Romanian university, have agreed to merge the two institutions. Despite the objections of the Hungarian professors within the senate of the University of Medicine, their votes were not enough to impede the decision.