Professor Şerban Bancu was born in Reghin on April 28, 1953. His parents were Doina and Victor Emilian Bancu. His father, a surgeon of great reputation, would later become the head of the Surgical Clinic at the Târgu-Mureș County Clinical Hospital and the rector of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Târgu-Mureș.
Şerban attended the courses of the Faculty of Medicine in Târgu-Mureș between 1972 and 1978, and the three years of secondary education (current residency) in the County Clinical Hospital in the same city. In 1980, he became a university assistant at the Faculty of General Medicine within the “UMF Târgu-Mureș”.
He climbed the steps of the university hierarchy (lecturer in 1997, professor in 2004) in parallel with those of the surgical specialization (specialist doctor 1983, primary doctor 1990). Between 2004 and 2018 (the year he retired) he managed the Surgical Clinic no. 2 of the Târgu-Mureș County Hospital.
Professor Șerban Bancu distinguished himself early on as one of Romania’s most valuable surgeons. He trained at the surgery school in Mures, led at the time by his father, Professor Victor Emilian Bancu, but also in other surgical centers in Romania and abroad. Of particular note is the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris, where he was mentored by Professor Roland Parc, a great figure in French and European medicine. It was Professor Parc who particularly appreciated his qualities and helped him develop them. Back home, Şerban Bancu tackled with great courage, at first under the guidance of Professor VE Bancu, then more and more independently, a wide range of operations, many of them of great complexity and difficulty.
He successfully tackled stomach, colon and rectal, breast, morbid obesity, abdominal wall surgery. He removed “unremovable” abdominal tumors, such as a huge sacro-coccygeal teratoma.
When laparoscopic surgery appeared, he adopted it very quickly, practicing a wide range of interventions through a minimally invasive approach.
Working in an emergency hospital, he inevitably faced the difficult field of polytrauma and emergency surgery.
As a curiosity, Professor Şerban Bancu has practiced a very wide range of vascular surgery interventions since he was young, in which, over time, he has accumulated great experience.
He was particularly passionate about several areas:
- esophagus surgery, being one of the first Romanian surgeons to approach transhiatal esophageal resections
- portal hypertension surgery, in which he successfully performed spleno-renal shunts, both proximal and distal, and is the author of the only case published in the Romanian literature of mesenteric-atrial shunt for Budd-Chiari syndrome. He also addressed the surgical treatment of ascites through peritoneo-venous sutures
- liver surgery and liver transplantation: Șerban was very enthusiastically involved in the national liver transplant program, in identifying potential donors (it should be noted that, during the pioneering period of liver transplantation, the Târgu-Mureș County Hospital, through the work of Dr. Otilia Moldovan, Professor Radu Deac and Professor Șerban Bancu was one of the main organ collection centers in Romania). He did a training internship in liver transplantation at the University of Iowa, and if he had benefited from more favorable conditions, he probably would have succeeded in building a liver transplant program in Târgu-Mureș.
In the life of the surgical community in Romania, Professor Șerban Bancu played an important role, being present at most scientific events (symposia, national congresses) together with the team he led. He published in the magazine “Surgery” the most important achievements of this collective.
He was the author or co-author of 6 monographs (including a particularly original one on neck surgery) and 3 national treatises.
He was a member of numerous national and international scientific societies.
Şerban was married to Ligia Bancu, a distinguished gastroenterologist in the same County Clinical Hospital in Târgu Mureș, who gave him two daughters, Ariana and Carla, of whom he was very proud.
He was always a good colleague, ready to help with a piece of advice or a kind word, very fair in his dealings with others and of impeccable morals.
It may have seemed strange for a surgeon with such high achievements, but Şerban was a dreamer with certain artistic inclinations. He played the voice, the guitar and the piano superbly. I remember him at some of the surgical symposia how he managed to maintain an extraordinary atmosphere using his extraordinary artistic talent. He did it without ostentation, with a lot of naturalness and simplicity.
A long and constant friendship linked me to Şerban. I remember him in the operating room, in the salons of the County Hospital in Târgu-Mureș, presenting his operated cases, at the Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris, where he was very well known and appreciated, at the surgical meetings, very nicely presenting special achievements in surgery (as the Symposium organized in 1986 in Târgu-Mureș by professor Victor Emilian Bancu was also titled and where our friendship began), then maintaining the atmosphere at the collegiate parties after the scientific sessions; at home, in the family, together with Ligia, with Ariana and Carla, listening to her father’s advice and asking her opinion when appropriate.
A life as a surgeon, lived with dignity and dedicated, with great generosity, to his patients, colleagues and students; finally, dedicated to the Romanian surgery that he loved so much!
This is how his student and successor, Prof. Radu Mircea Neagoe, characterizes him upon his retirement in October 2018:
“Mr. Professor, for most of us you represent the embodiment of the gentle and wise spirit, of the mature intellectual who knows how to teach but also to scold with equal love and generosity. In the good years when we had the chance to work side by side in the operating room, we learned what it means to be clear and logical in approaching difficult cases in esophageal surgery, PH, in oncological surgery. You were undoubtedly touched here by your father’s surgical genius, which you skillfully and painstakingly polished to suit your own personality. But you are not only the surgical mentor of many of us; you are the founder of this clinic where I had the chance to train as a resident, later becoming a specialist and primary care physician. I have noticed all this time, and it’s been more than 20 years, your ability to lead this collective. You have remarkably managed to defuse countless tense situations from the chair, most of the time with a smile, a joke or a joke, rarely needing to raise your voice to make yourself understood.
And there was something else…. there were those wonderful moments when you naturally took off the coat of the Professor from the operating room or from the chair, you put your hands on a guitar and we had the chance to meet The Man Şerban Bancu. We hummed together “Iubire bibelou de porcelan” chorus which became in a way an anthem of this Clinic, you recited to us, you took us for an imaginary walk through the countless beautiful places you visited. There were wonderful moments that brought this collective together and that we will never forget! »
As with any separation, we are inevitably tried by the pain that accompanies such moments, especially since Şerban left us too soon.
He now enters the Pantheon of Romanian surgery, leaving behind a very rich legacy, which will be passed on to future generations through the descendants he left behind!
God rest him in peace!
Prof. Dr. Irinel Popescu
Center for Digestive Diseases and Liver Transplantation
Fundeni Clinical Institute, Bucharest
