Tuberculoză, elite medicale și paradigme ale gestionării sănătății publice: școala de osteochirurgie din România interbelică
Tuberculosis, Medical Elites, and Public Health Management Paradigms: the School of Orthopedic Surgery in Interwar Romania

Summary/Abstract: This study analyzes the two approaches to public health management in the late 1920s Romania, when Iuliu Moldovan was appointed head of the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance. In that context the Iuliu Maniu government reorganized the Ministry by creating the Department of Public Education (Direcţia de Educaţie Populară). In order to grant it a significant budget, Moldovan cut funding intended for the support of societies focused on fighting tuberculosis. They were created in The Old Kingdom of Romania, at the beginning of the century. Although I. Cantacuzino and other physicians argued that this reduction would shut down the care services that they provided, the new leaders did not follow their advice. This moment was symptomatic for the two different paradigms operating in Romania at that time. The Old Kingdom elite relied heavily on private societies for medical and social assistance, as this private-public partnership was set in place prior to the war and performed adequately. However, new comers promoted a health care paradigm founded in state management. By reducing funding for the societies which were at the fore front of the fight against tuberculosis, Moldovan effectively brought their activities to a halt. Ironically, it was in one of the sanatoriums of these societies that the new orthopedic school emerged, after important professionals such as Victor Climescu and Atanasie Ianăş had trained in Western Europe to treat children and young adults with spine tuberculosis.

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