🇬🇷 Rezi for a Foreign Student in Romania, with dr. Angeliki Pafli

🎙️ Invitee: Dr. Angeliki Pafli is a Greek-born physician who successfully matched into Plastic Surgery at UMF Iași with an impressive score of 840 — her third attempt at the Romanian residency exam. Her journey reflects remarkable perseverance: her first attempt earned a score of 638, leading her into Orthopedic Surgery, while her second attempt in 2024 yielded a score of 751, just short of securing Plastic Surgery, at which point she chose General Surgery. On her third and final attempt, she achieved the score needed to pursue her specialty of choice. Beyond her medical dedication, Dr. Pafli adapted seamlessly to her new environment, learning Romanian with ease and completing an English language course at UMF Iași in 2023.

📷 Instagram: instagram.com/aggeliki_pfl

Host: dr. Teo Dumitru 📷 Instagram: instagram.com/teo.dumi 📱 Facebook: facebook.com/teo.dumi

⏱️ Cuprins

• 00:00:00 – Intro
• 00:02:17 – What does her family think about her being a doctor in Romania?
• 00:04:02 – Her story as a medical resident in Romania
• 00:07:14 – 638 points after 3 months of studying
• 00:09:06 – The experience of being a resident in Orthopedics
• 00:10:39 – Second try at the residency exam: 751 points
• 00:11:58 – General Surgery experience
• 00:12:43 – Third try: she got into Plastic Surgery (840 points)
• 00:13:38 – Why she chose Romania
• 00:17:17 – What she thinks about Iași
• 00:18:51 – Language difficulties
• 00:22:43 – Advice for foreign students
• 00:25:10 – A small advantage of being a Greek doctor
• 00:26:11 – Enrollment documents
• 00:28:24 – Where she plans to go after finishing residency
• 00:29:21 – Exchange in France: FFI (EU)
• 00:34:08 – Study techniques
• 00:41:38 – Mixing Greek, Romanian, and English while studying
• 00:46:21 – Did med school help?
• 00:48:10 – How many times she went through the curriculum
• 00:49:17 – What it feels like to study the same books again and again
• 00:53:44 – Mistakes on the exam
• 00:55:05 – Simulations
• 00:57:46 – Experience in Orthopedics and General Surgery
• 01:02:58 – Thesis
• 01:05:37 – The last weeks before the exam
• 01:09:16 – Studying for residency while working in the hospital
• 01:12:47 – Taking care of her body
• 01:15:10 – The day before the exam
• 01:19:43 – High scores
• 01:23:02 – Equivalence of the first years of residency
• 01:25:34 – Was she lucky?
• 01:29:39 – One last piece of advice
• 01:31:13 – Would she change anything?

The Grile-Rezidentiat.ro Mindcast is the place where future doctors can find inspiration and practical guidance directly from people who have excelled in Romania’s national residency exam. We invite top-scoring medical residents, along with other medical professionals, to share actionable study advice, essential insights, and real-world experiences. Our mission is to support the next generation of doctors as they choose their specialty—offering direction, transparency, and valuable perspectives. Whether you’re a 5th or 6th year medical student or you’re considering switching specialties, this Mindcast is for you, now with an English edition for foreign students.

What is Grile-Rezidentiat.ro? Grile-Rezidentiat.ro is Romania’s most widely used online platform for optimizing how you study for the national residency exam. The current platform is significantly more advanced than similar systems in Romania, built on technology we’ve been continuously improving for over 10 years. Link: grile-rezidentiat.ro

The platform includes over 77,000 practice questions based on the official bibliography (for Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry), plus 30,000 flashcards. Key features include randomized tests, AI-explained questions, flashcards, question sets filtered by specific pages, full exam simulations, progress charts, notes, a timer, instant answers or answers shown at the end (with automatic scoring), discussion forums, and more.

Disclaimer: The opinions and information expressed by podcast guests are personal and do not reflect the views of their employers or of Grile-Rezidentiat.ro.