The Department of Anatomy, Embryology, Topographic and Sectional Anatomy is located in Petru Rares Street 2-4 (old building), where it has a modern lecture room (Auditorium), 5 dissection and practical demonstration rooms equipped according to the standards, as well as a cadaver exploitation service equipped with a long-term storage room, cadaver refrigerator, cadaver preparation room for embalming, ossuary and rooms for processing anatomical parts.
General objectives:
- to acquire and understand international anatomical terminology and to develop the ability to use it in students' medical language
- to recognise and define descriptively and functionally the elements of human body systems
- the acquisition by students of the concepts that provide the anatomical basis for curricular medical practices and manoeuvres.
- to introduce students to the study of the human body by using direct (cadaver dissection) and indirect methods (imaging studies, virtual anatomy)
Research directions:
The main research directions are focused on studies of physical anthropology, anatomical variants, biomechanics, developmental anatomy, as well as meso- and microanatomical studies of angiogenesis and extracellular matrix organization.
Short history of the Department of Human Anatomy:
The establishment of the Department of Human Anatomy and Forensic Medicine coincides with the emergence of higher medical education in Craiova, in the academic year 1970/1971. Initially, the Department was called the Department of Morphology and included only the Discipline of Human Anatomy - descriptive, topographic and developmental - organized and directed by Prof. Raoul Querin Robacki. From the academic year 1971/1972 the composition of the department was enlarged by the appearance of two new disciplines: Histology (academic year 1971/1972) and Pathological Anatomy (academic year 1972/1973) organized and directed by the Head of the Department, Prof. Dr. Ion Rosculescu. Subsequently, the Department will include two more disciplines: Forensic Medicine (1975/1976 academic year) organized and directed by Dr. Dan Gheorghiu, and History of Medicine organized and directed by Dr. Mihai Scheau. From the academic year 1976/1977, the Department of Morphology was reorganized by the redistribution to other departments of Histology and Pathological Anatomy. From 1976 to 2003, the department was coordinated by Prof. Gheorghe S. Drăgoi and from 2003 to 2005 by Prof. Agota Ferschin.
The founder and first head of the Department of Morphology was Prof. Raoul Robacki (1970-1976), who laid the organizational foundations of the teaching process and scientific research activities in macroscopic anatomy and anthropological anatomy. He designed the functional structure of the Department of Human Anatomy and the logistic equipment of the department's laboratories. He held the first doctoral chair in the Faculty of Medicine. Together with the staff of the department, he developed informative didactic materials: a guide to practical work and a Treatise on Human Anatomy (vol. I).
Prof. Mihai Ionescu (1972-1975) edited courses on descriptive anatomy, topography and embryology for the use of students as well as two treatises on the history of human anatomy. He was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Prof. Gheorghe S. Drăgoi coordinated the Discipline of Human Anatomy and Forensic Medicine for 27 years and continued the tradition of his masters. He equipped the macroscopy and mesoscopy laboratories. He introduced microanatomical research in the department and computer-assisted microscopic imaging. He is a full member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences and of the Romanian, French and German Anatomical Societies. He is scientific supervisor of a PhD in Human Anatomy at I.O.D. U.M.F. of Craiova. He has written textbooks and treatises on Human Anatomy: Descriptive Anatomy of Man (3 volumes), Anatomy of Human Development (1 volume), Anatomy of the Neural System (1 volume). He has published scientific works in the fields of human anatomy, anthropology and forensic medicine. Scientific research topics have included issues related to the temporal-spatial structure of biosystems, cybernetic model of morphological systems, functional anatomy of the duodeno-hepato-bilio-pancreatic system, bioinvariants of the neurocranium and splanchnocranium, ortho- and pathomorphogenesis, research in anthropology, experimental medicine and forensic medicine. He has been teaching abroad as a full professor at the National University of the Republic of Zaire (Congo) in Anatomy, Embryology, Pathology and Forensic Medicine.