We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aurelian Stefan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aurelian below.

Aurelian , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear stories from your time in school/training/etc.

I entered vetschool when i was 18, that was over 25 years ago. Competition was pretty high wuth 6 people competing for one place. Me and my brother come from a monoparental family ,where our mother struggled to feed her two sons.
Everybody who took this exam had to take private lessons to stand a chance at the entry exam. My high-school colleagues contributed with their own money to pay for my private chemistry lessons . I passed the exam with maximum points and this of course was a great joy for me , my family and my colleagues whom I am forever grateful.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Vet school takes 6 years and as the society was in process of being modernised after 50 years of communist regime , our school has serious lacks in what animal welfare meant. For instance there was not enough hay for the horses we were learning on . I remember one day we went to a nearby park were grass was mowed. We asked them nicely to print the grass to the university and all of a sudden there was enough food for a week. We the students were really proud of this.
During the study we going to shelters to give a helping hand . The conditions were terrible , overcrowded and very very dirty. Imagine 500 dogs in a cow stable , the noise was powerful and every single dog was begging for attention. There was no possible way to walk 500 dogs in the limited time we were there.
We focused on dogs that had skin problems ,bite wounds and on the small puppies .
We understood that those dogs will be emprisoned for the rest of their life in the shelter.
Back in those days Bucharest municipality poisoned all dogs living on the streets. I remember one morning when I saw all those dead dogs : this image is imprinted on my retina .
After graduation I got a job at a dog shelter with 4000 dogs , organized in a former fox fur farm .
There was a spay neuter and return program conducted by thie charity who ran the shelter. In 4 months I had already performed 500 spay and neuter surgeries. I felt like every surgery that i performed had a huge impact on the dog population . It was humane and it brought a durable efect. I felt like this ia what I want to do as a veterinarian. Spay and neuter so that animals do not come randomly on this world .
Soon after I have met Nancy Janes an american lady who started a charity in Romania specifically to spay and neuter as many animals as possible.
We started cruising Romania doing spay and neuter in an old caravan that we transformed into a mobile unit.
I can say were were pioneering as this was not so commonly done in Romania.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

The recipe of success is quite simple : do what you do best , do what you love to do so that will really make you feel like you are not working. Putting a part of what you do in the service of the community and integrating that in the everyday life ,will make you a successful person. In the end it is very difficult to define success but for sure being an assets to your community is a form of success.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

First you need find people that believe in the same values like you do . Second is to let them develop and put their skills at good work. Third give them as much free time as you can and pay them according to their responsibilities and to the drive they show at work.
Try be a leader not a boss and you have a good chance to form a solid team that will stand by you in good and in worse.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.romaniaanimalrescue.org
• Instagram: www.instagram.org/homelessanimalhospital

Image Credits

ROMANIA ANIMAL RESCUE