For a growing number of patients in Western Europe, the question of where to have a planned operation is no longer answered by geography alone. Waiting times, the price of private care and the matter of who exactly will be performing the procedure all enter the calculation, and once they do, the search tends to widen beyond national borders. Romania appears in that wider search, and Cluj-Napoca, a university city in Transylvania served by an international airport, is one of the places where it stops.
Among the practices that have organised themselves explicitly around this kind of patient is that of Prof. Univ. Dr. Florin Graur, a senior consultant in general surgery and doctor of medical sciences who works in Cluj-Napoca. His website carries a complete English-language section addressed to international patients alongside the Romanian one. What follows is a description of how that offer is structured and what it says about the practicalities of treatment abroad.
A practice organised around one surgical approach
The activity is presented under the legal entity Synergic Medical Group SRL, active since 2007, with Dr. Graur as administrator. Consultations take place at an office on str. Marin Sorescu in Cluj-Napoca, while operations are performed at Humanitas Hospital (MedLife) on Str. Frunzișului, in the same city.
The clinical profile described on the site is abdominal surgery carried out, wherever the case allows it, through minimally invasive routes. The practice states that it covers the full operative spectrum, from open surgery to laparoscopic and robot-assisted procedures, and that the technique is selected according to the particularities of each case rather than out of preference for a given technology. That distinction matters for patients who arrive having read about robotic surgery and assume it must therefore be the right answer for their own situation.
Eight service areas are listed: advanced laparoscopic surgery, digestive oncological surgery, hepato-biliary surgery, pancreatic surgery, colorectal surgery, abdominal wall surgery, bariatric and metabolic surgery, and diagnostic and interventional ultrasound. A separate section, dedicated to the conditions treated, is organised into seven anatomical groups, covering the stomach and duodenum, colon and rectum, pancreas, liver and bile ducts, gallbladder, abdominal wall and spleen, with more than 35 pages devoted to individual conditions.
Credentials that read the same across borders
For a patient comparing options in another country, the difficulty is rarely finding a clinic. It lies in judging what the qualifications on the page actually mean. The credentials listed here are European ones. According to the information published by the practice, Dr. Graur holds two Fellow of the European Board of Surgery certifications, one in Minimally Invasive Surgery (F.E.B.S./MIS) and one in Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery (F.E.B.S./HPB). Both are titles of the European Board of Surgery, and a reader abroad can therefore place them without first having to decode an unfamiliar national qualification system. Since 2023 he has also served as national delegate to the UEMS Bureau de Chirurgie HPB.
The professional record set out on the site covers more than 30 years of surgical activity, beginning in 1996, and more than 10,000 operations as primary operator, predominantly minimally invasive. Alongside the operating record there is an academic one: over 120 scientific articles, book chapters and specialist publications, and more than 200 papers presented at national and international conferences. Training fellowships completed in France, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands are listed as well, together with membership of the Romanian Society of Surgery, the Romanian Association of Endoscopic Surgery and the European Association for Endoscopic Surgery. A certified competence in general ultrasound, obtained through the Jefferson Ultrasound Research and Education Institute in Philadelphia, completes the picture.
The cost question, as the practice frames it
Cost is usually what starts the conversation for patients considering treatment in another country, and the way a clinic handles that question says a good deal about how it works. The practice states that private care in Romania costs significantly less than comparable treatment in Western Europe, and it places the financial estimate inside the process rather than ahead of it: in the pathway described for international patients, a treatment plan accompanied by a cost estimate is drawn up after the existing medical documents have been reviewed. That sequence follows the nature of the work, since the cost of abdominal surgery depends on what the investigations show, and a figure quoted before anyone has read an imaging report is of limited use to either side.
Patients who want to understand the reasoning before contacting anyone can read through the practice’s English-language medical blog, where the published articles cover what international patients can expect from surgery abroad, how a remote second opinion is conducted, and what is involved in gallbladder, hernia and colorectal cancer procedures.
The practical geography of Cluj-Napoca
Distance is the second variable in the decision, and it is a logistical one rather than a medical one. The practice points to direct flights connecting several European cities to Cluj-Napoca International Airport, which shortens the journey both for the patient and for whoever travels with them. For anyone weighing a procedure abroad, the travel arrangements are rarely a detail: they determine how easily a companion can come along, how demanding the return trip will be, and how a follow-up visit could be organised if one becomes necessary.
A pathway described in five stages
The English-language section sets out the route for international patients in five steps:
- an online consultation, during which the existing medical documents are analysed
- a treatment plan accompanied by a cost estimate
- coordination of travel arrangements and hospital admission
- the operation itself and the recovery period at Humanitas Hospital
- follow-up consultations carried out remotely after the patient has returned home
The practice states that an English-speaking team accompanies the patient from that first online consultation through to the follow-up stage. Structuring the route this way places the decision-making before the journey rather than after it, which is the part most patients travelling for a procedure worry about.
What can be arranged without travelling at all
Two of the services described are designed to work entirely at a distance. The second opinion involves a personal review by the surgeon of the documentation a patient already holds, including CT, MRI and PET-CT scans, endoscopy reports, histopathology results, blood tests, medical letters and previous recommendations, followed by an independent assessment of the available treatment options, including minimally invasive alternatives. The online consultation covers the interpretation of investigations, preoperative preparation and postoperative monitoring. Appointments for both are made through online forms, by telephone, e-mail or WhatsApp.
For oncological cases, the site describes a multidisciplinary protocol bringing together the surgeon, the oncologist, the radiologist and the pathologist, presented as a way of avoiding both unnecessary interventions and avoidable delays. The practice also notes that the presence of liver metastases does not in itself place a case beyond surgical consideration, an assessment that depends on the individual situation and can only be made by the medical team examining it.
The limits the practice sets out
Two boundaries are stated plainly on the site. Consultations are held by prior appointment only, and the practice specifies that it does not address medical emergencies, which remain a matter for emergency services in the patient’s own country. The material presents the assessment of each patient as a separate process, with the treatment options set out only after the documentation has been examined.
Anyone considering a procedure abroad is generally advised to discuss the plan with their treating physician at home first, to check what their national health system or insurer covers, and to establish who will manage the follow-up after the return journey. Patients who wish to ask about the process directly will find the details for enquiries and scheduling on the contact and appointments page for international patients, where the practice lists its telephone, e-mail and messaging channels.
This article is informative in nature and does not replace a specialist medical consultation. Decisions regarding surgical treatment can be taken only by a qualified physician, after a direct examination and a review of the complete medical file.
