Dental Experts – About us

Our clinic was founded more than a decade ago by university professors Dr. Dorin Bratu and his son Emanuel Bratu out of the desire to prove that Romania can excel in the field of dental medicine. The investment was made not only in state-of-the-art equipment and technology but also in doctors who live up to the clinic’s reputation and to the most demanding standards in the field, many of those present in the clinic today have been with us from the very beginning. The road to this point, however, has not been easy and began almost 100 years ago, with Emanuel Bratu’s great-great-grandmother, who laid the foundations for the ambition that encouraged the first generation of family doctors to take risks and overcome obstacles and setbacks.

Three generations of medical excellence

The Bratu family’s first generation of doctors began on the outskirts of Sibiu, with Emanuel Bratu’s grandfather, the youngest child. It was his great-grandmother’s ambition that motivated him to study medicine. He attended medical school in Cluj-Napoca, and his graduation diploma was signed by the dean of the faculty at the time, Emil Racoviță. He specialized in gynecology and practiced in Oradea until 1940. At that time, the north of Transylvania was ceded to Hungary, and his grandfather was forced to relocate to Debrecen, where gynecologists were needed. By this time, he had built a building in Oradea, set up as a gynecological hospital. On the very morning of the day the Hungarian authorities gave him the news of his relocation, a train arrived at the train station in Oradea loaded with equipment, hospital beds, operating tables, a Roentgen machine, and other necessities – all bought from France for the hospital. At the end of the train was a BMW convertible. For refusing to relocate, the family had 24 hours to leave the territory. They left everything behind and headed for Timisoara, where Dr. Bratu later became director of the CFR hospital.

The story of the Bratu family’s second generation of doctors began with Dr. Dorin Bratu, with whom Emanuel set up the Dental Experts clinic. Dorin Bratu graduated from the Faculty of Dental Medicine but was forced by the communist authorities to give up a piece of land owned by his family, near the Prefecture, in order to continue his studies. He accepted and continued his university studies, during which time he met his wife, also a dentist. The two were assigned as trainee doctors in Timiș County, in Sânnicolau Mare, where the problems didn’t end. Here, no one wanted to rent them a place to live. In 1966, the majority of the local population were ethnic Germans. Eventually, Dorin Bratu managed to talk to the city’s mayor – also an ethnic German – about their situation, and the mayor offered them his own place, free of charge for a year.
The ethnic German patients the couple worked with were demanding and wanted nothing shy of impeccable service, for which they were willing to pay anything.
After Sânnicolau Mare, the Bratu couple moved to Timișoara, where the wife pursued a career in higher education. Professor Dorin Bratu was assigned by the Communist Party to Cluj-Napoca in the 1980s, where he, along with other specialists, developed Romanian dental materials. In the first six months, in 1987, he completed the first sealing material for grooves and fissures for children. Subsequently, he was offered a position as head of work at the UMF department in Timișoara.

Hence, the inspiration for Emanuel Bratu to pursue medicine and carry on the tradition of the third generation of doctors in the Bratu family. Even this path was not without obstacles or hindrances from the communist regime. One of his father’s colleagues complained that he had exempted his son from military service. Emanuel Bratu was taken to task by the authorities and his father was forced to resign so that his son could start his studies. He refused, but Emanuel Bratu went to university and studied dentistry until 1994. He then obtained a scholarship from the Austrian state and worked for a year at the AKH Vienna, the maxillofacial surgery clinic, after which he returned to Timisoara. Here, at his father’s insistence, Victor Babes University set up a department of implantology that was headed by his son.

About our clinic

The idea of setting up a prestigious clinic began in the 2000s, although the Bratu family had offers from Austria and Germany. They chose to work here, in Timisoara, where they set up a dental clinic. It took all the family’s savings and several bank loans to open the clinic. From the beginning, the focus was on modern equipment, excellent service, and highly trained medical professionals – 80% of the original team still being in the clinic today. Most of them were students of Prof. Dr. Dorin Bratu, whom he trained in school. All of them have attended training, refresher courses, and prestigious congresses in order to meet the most demanding standards in modern dentistry.
Camelia Bratu, Emanuel Bratu’s wife, who has taken over the management of the clinic, is also an important support in the development of the current clinic.

Modern equipment. Continuous improvement

There were years of advanced clinical studies, published by Prof. Dr. Dorin and Emanuel Bratu in the literature, but also record-breaking moments: we are the clinic in the West of the country with the highest number of dental implants inserted, and the first specialists in Romania to use ultrasound piezosurgery. We have achieved firsts for Timișoara, including the first metal-ceramic crowns and the first subperiosteal (1964) and intraosseous (1974) implants.
Evolution, at least in medicine, should never stop. So should investment in high-performance equipment, that helps us to solve some of the most difficult cases. That’s why we invest every year in technology, in new state-of-the-art equipment, in order to put patient safety and comfort first.