A 1960-model radio set whispers a soft music in the bright elegant room. A laptop and a delicate African statuette sit on the desk. Glass icons cover one wall, while another is decorated with framed diplomas and certificates bearing the same name: Toma T. Mugea, Senior Plastic Surgeon, Chairman of the Romanian Society of Plastic Surgery.
When a student of the Andrei aaguna High School from Brasov, Toma T. Mugea was planning to attend the Aerospace Construction Faculty, as he was very good with physics and had participated in many Olympiads.
But he changed his mind a year before the High School Graduation Exam and settled for the Medical School instead, where he was admitted in 1971. After having finished the three-year internship, he joined the Campaign Surgery Department of Military Medicine School as an assistant professor. Three years later, when he was supposed to be confirmed for this position, the faculty was disbanded.
A stubborn man, Toma T. Mugea entered the competition for residency, where he was admitted the first from a list of 1,500 applicants. He completed his residency with Professor Oancea and in 1983 he was sent to Professor Agrippa Ionescu, where he got his first taste in plastic surgery, a medical branch that suited him like a glove. When he finished the residency, he chose the best destination available: the Cluj-based Military Hospital.
In 1990, he was proposed to go for a one-month experience exchange in Edinburgh, Scotland. His superiors refused to let him go, arguing he would not come back. He stepped down in order to go in Scotland, where he met Anthony Watson, the Chairman of the British Society of Plastic Surgery.
Impressed by the Romanian’s talent, Watson suggested him to apply for a six-month fellowship, during which Mugea attended a contest organised by the British Society of Plastic Surgery.
As he got comprehensive experience in this field and the largest in Romania, he was requested to work with Professor Agrippa Ionescu in Bucharest and he accepted, but soon he realised his conceptions disagreed with his chief’s.
In December 1993, he moved to Cluj and made the decision that changed his entire life: to open his own plastic surgery clinic, the first surgical limited liability company in Romania.
He performed the first plastic surgery, a liposuction, at Med-Estet on May 9, 1996, together with the French Professor Pierre Fournier, the pioneer of this surgical procedure, English Anthony Erian, the first president of the European Academy of Plastic Surgery and German Ziya Saylan, the Academy’s incumbent president.
The operation was successful and the patient was released two days afterwards. Since then, Med-Estet has performed more than 1,500 surgeries.
Toma T. Mugea has performed every possible plastic surgery over the years: liposuctions, breast implants, chemical peeling, breast and facial plastic surgeries. Med-Estet started with a share capital of 100,000 lei two employees and today it has 20 employees and medical equipment worth more than 200,000 dollars.