Kassie Owens, Babes- Bolyai Univeristy (MHA/MPH '26)

Bună ziua and salutări from beautiful Cluj-Napoca, Romania! 

I am delighted to share my experience with my Global Health Program summer internship abroad offered by Babes-Bolyai University and the Cluj School of Public Health. The Global Health Internship Program provides personalized summer educational experiences for international students with various healthcare career paths and interests, including medical shadowing, public health research, community health practice, rural health, pharmacy, health management, and so much more! I chose to apply for the community health practice track of the program because I aspire to work with non-profits in my career after graduate school and pursue health policy that makes a difference in population health and systemic improvement for healthcare access and equity. Based on my interests, experience, and personal identity, I created a plan with my program advisor to work with a local LGBTQ+ NGO (non-governmental organization) called Queer Sisterhood Cluj to spread awareness of LGBTQ+ health information aimed toward medical providers and the Cluj community. Since Romania is ranked much lower than other countries in LGBTQ+ rights and equality, there is a great deal of stigma, misinformation, and discrimination toward the queer community, especially directed at transgender people. The project goal is to create easily accessible online infographics with information from first-hand experience interviews and research data that can be shared, referenced, and built upon by other local organizations and students. 

Over the past few months, I have learned so much about the healthcare system in Romania and how it impacts the community, individuals, students, health professionals, organizations, and facilities through interviews, casual conversations, research, site visits, presentations, and observation. In addition to my community health project, I took on a side project related to my health administration classes to conduct a population health-focused stakeholder analysis of the Romanian healthcare system. For this project, I interviewed several different public health professionals to collect information for my analysis and created a presentation summary that I presented to some Cluj School of Public Health staff today! It was super interesting to discuss Romania’s unique post-communism approach to its healthcare system from those who work closely with healthcare and experience its strengths and challenges. This experience taught me that although healthcare strategy differs from country to country, there are consistently similar challenges such as funding, staffing, and declining health outcomes. With a better idea of the solutions Romania is currently working on for the future like health infrastructure building, I feel more prepared to contribute to future innovative solutions.

Spending time in Romania was a unique, enriching, and memorable experience that I will cherish forever. I was grateful to be connected with a student guide by my program coordinators to help me experience all the amazing locations and activities Cluj-Napoca has to offer. There are plenty of peaceful parks, trails, historic architecture, and picturesque surrounding hills to explore. My student guide, Pearls, is an international student from Nigeria. Through her perspective and connections with other students, I was exposed to far more extensive culture than I expected and met so many amazing new friends! I also spent the summer sharing a room and hanging out with my fellow student intern Mackenzie, a Johns Hopkins University MSPH candidate from Florida. Locally, I visited the historic Cluj Firefighter Tower, hiked up a hill on the edge of city center, strolled around the Alexandru Borza Botanical Garden, went dancing at some clubs popular with students, watched some Euro Cup games at streaming events, attended two world-reknown music festivals, discovered a Transylvanian International Culture Celebration with traditional performances, homemade goods, and food, explored all of the shopping malls, went grocery shopping and cooked my own meals, and tried a variety of restaurant options! 

One of my favorite weeks in Romania was when my partner visited and we went on some more fun excursions in Cluj-Napoca, some of which were led with suggestions from me after I knew the area better. My advisors also set up a trip to multiple castles around Romania in the Transylvania area, including Bran Castle (the notorious “Dracula’s Castle”), and we even took a ski lift up the Carpathian Mountains over 6000 ft high! Overall, I would highly recommend traveling to Romania for leisure or academic pursuits, since Babes-Bolyai University is the largest university in Romania. I look forward to sharing more from my experience with everyone back home!