Nicolae Testemițanu

Nicolae Testemițanu was born on August 1, 1927 in the village Ochiul-

Alb, Bălți.
Romanian by nationality, he was the third child among the six brothers
and sisters, and he was named Nicolae in honour of his grandfather.
Being a child, he was eager to know much. After the primary school he
continued his studies in the gymnasium for boys from Baraboy, where
he passed successfully his school-leaving examination in 1941. Later he
pursued his studies at the prestigious high school “ Ion Creanga” from
Bălți.
In 1946 Nicolae passed the admission to the Medical Institute. In 1951
he was one of the first graduates of the higher Medical School from
Chisinau. After that he decided to return back to the country where he
was a surgeon at the Central District Hospital from Riscani. But that
didn’t meet his endeavors, because he considered that his potential was much higher and in the same year he
was admitted as a lecturer at the Chair of General Surgery. He was a great advocate of the specialized
medicine and in 1954 he started the scientific study. In 1958 it resulted in a brilliant defending of his thesis
for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Nicolae Testemițanu was always concerned with the publishing of a
medical magazine. Thus in 1957 he succeeded in founding the magazine “Health Protection”, later renamed
“The Medical Messenger”. Being the editor-in chief of the magazine, he held the position of the Director of
the Republican Clinical Hospital (1955-1958). In 1959 he was appointed as rector of the State Medical
Institute at the age of 32, which aroused the envy of some ill-intentioned people that later had bad intentions.
In his new position, Nicolae Testemițanu proved himself to be a capable and excellent leader and organizer,
full of initiative and unyielding in his opinions. In a short period of time, by motivating the authorities he
succeeded to open new departments of Dentistry (1959), Preventive Medicine (1962) and Pharmacy (1964).
This fact was very significant which guaranteed an ongoing supply with medical specialists of the country
on an appropriate level. Also, as a result of his efforts, in 1962 the Department of Postgraduate Training was
opened.
In 1963 Nicolae Testemițanu was appointed as Minister of Health of Moldova.
At the age of 38 Nicolae Testemițanu realized that the most important thing for Moldova was to train more
and better specialists. Within the Ministry of Health N.Testemițanu implemented many changes,
improvements and reforms, to make things go better. He contributed very much to the development of
international cooperation. Nicolae Testemițanu set up different links with other medical universities from
Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary, but he was not allowed to establish contacts with Romania. Later
he was accused of “nationalism” and discharged from the position of Minister. The textbooks of medicine in
the Romanian language were collected from students to be destroyed. In 1973 he defended the thesis for the
degree of Ph. Doctor (PhD) and he got the position of Chief of the Social Medicine Department.
He was a great patriot and used to say that “Motherland is the first threshold of your house, of your village,
and your country”. He loved his village, his countrymen, his parents and relatives.
At 59 he had a heart failure. His life was short but his deeds were great.