How Romania’s medical industry profits from women’s bodies through procedures lacking scientific evidence – some funded by public healthcare, others costing thousands of euros in private clinics
This article by Luiza Vasiliu, originally published in Snoop in November 2025, covers the Romanian element of a joint European investigation. A multi-part series in Polish covering Anna Pamula’s research in Poland was published by OKO.press in January 2026.Warning: This article goes into details some readers may find distressing.
“I have a feeling that you can’t have orgasms.”
These words were spoken to a patient by a urologist at a state hospital in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. His name is Dr Vasilica Minciună.
Formerly a GP in Slobozia, a mid-sized town east of Bucharest, until 2024 Dr Minciună was head of urology at the capital’s Clinical Hospital 2 (CF2). He currently works with several private clinics. In 2024, he was investigated by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, and is now on trial, charged with defrauding European funds by falsifying multiple documents.
Private clinic Snoop reports that Dr Minciună has an income of over RON335,000 per year (approximately £57,112 or $77,000), but no money and no property is featured in his declaration of assets for 2024.
Dr Minciună claimed in a discussion with Snoop that he was “clinical head at Monza Hospital”. But his name doesn’t appear on the hospital’s official website. When we tried to make an appointment, we were told there was no record of him on the hospital’s database of consultants.
Ilinca, his former patient, and the woman to whom these words were spoken, had originally contacted him with a urinary infection. He was recommended to her by a mutual friend who knew she had been dealing with this problem for a long time. She had experienced a series of unhappy relationships and was under the impression that there was something wrong with her.
Ilinca This is not the patient’s real name, which has been changed in the article so as to protect her identity.
“How could you tell?”, she asked the doctor in reply.“I have my ways,” he answered.
Dr Minciună gave her a quick prescription for the infection. For the orgasm issue, he invited her to attend a private clinic. “You don’t have to leave it as it is, you know. Don’t you want to live your life, too?”, he said to her.
She recalls: “He was very warm, very persuasive,” in a way that made her give him her trust. “I was in a vulnerable position. Rather scared, afraid. I’ve always been like that.”
In autumn 2021, she was 36 years old, with a complicated family history under her belt: her father was a violent university professor; her deeply troubled mother would die by suicide just a few months later. Ilinca had experienced a lot of shame and pain over the years.
It took three years of therapy before she was able to talk about what the doctor who promised to fix her inability to orgasm then did to her. “It was basically rape,” she stresses. “Sorry, look, I still get goosebumps.”
We asked Dr Minciună about the incident. “No way! Not at all, definitely not, God forbid!”, he reacted.
Staying young – without ageing, or medical evidence
Dr Minciunǎ supplemented his income from the hospital by working as head of unit at a private clinic.
It was here that he introduced Ilinca to the miracle treatment: O-Shot – “a new American discovery,” he said, pending approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A treatment that will “revolutionise women’s lives,” she remembers being told – a solution to orgasm issues, urinary infections, and endometriosis at a cost of €1,000 (approximately £870 or $1,200), paid upfront. The treatment involves taking some blood, putting it in a device, and then injecting plasma into the vagina, labia, and clitoris.
At the clinic, Ilinca didn’t agree to anything – neither yes, nor no. She went home and went online. A quick search suggested it would be okay. She also called a cousin from Bucharest’s high life. The cousin told her that she also had had the treatment and was very pleased with the result.
High life The phrase in English was used in the original Romanian text. We take it to refer to people with a flashy, moneyed lifestyle – nouveau riche.The O-Shot, the commercial name for PRP (platelet-rich plasma) treatment, is marketed as a treatment for “sexual well-being”. The name is the trademark of controversial Alabama-based internal medicine doctor, Dr Charles Runels.
| Dr Minciună was contacted by phone prior to the publication of the original article. He responded in a right of reply addressed to the editors of Snoop. In this, he claims his statements, as quoted in the investigation by the two patients, were “taken out of context, misinterpreted and presented tendentiously, outside the original framework and medical context in which they were formulated”. Dr Minciună argues the allegations made are unfounded and that the discussion in question “had a strictly medical character and was part of the sexual anamnesis”. He states that “such questions are a legitimate part of consultations and are included in medical sexuality guides (AUA & EAU)”, and the medical intervention he carried out was filtered through the subjective lens of the patient. As for the procedures carried out, the doctor claims that these are scientifically validated and widely used medical treatments at an international level. He adds: “I never presented a treatment as magical or with a full guaranteed outcome.” Dr Minciună’s full response is available on Snoop.ro. Snoop also subsequently received the following update from Monza Hospital: “Following your enquiry about the topic recently discussed on Snoop.ro, please find the below clarifications: Dr Vasilica Minciună is not an employee of Monza Hospital, he does not currently hold and has never held a leadership role at our hospital. Our relationship with him as a locum physician is ad-hoc and sporadic, solely involving urological surgery – totalling five interventions during the entire collaboration. We also wish to stress that the kinds of interventions mentioned in the article have never been carried out at the Monza Hospital and are not part of the services offered by our institution. Many thanks. The Monza Hospital Team |
AUA – American Urological Association; EAU – European Association of Urology.
In 2008, Dr Runels received an eight-page letter from the FDA warning him he had broken the rules of clinical trials approximately 20 times. Among the many egregious flaws in his methodology was testing the O-Shot on women at a homeless shelter, exposing them to an experimental procedure the risks of which they did not understand. Additionally, “many subjects were not able to be contacted for required 3 and/or 6-month safety follow-up telephone interviews because they lacked a permanent address and/or phone number”. He also delayed feedback and then failed to report any adverse effects at all.In sum, nobody knows the true extent of the harms caused to the women Dr Runels had medically abused. Dr Runels was disqualified as a clinical trial investigator in 2009. That same year, he was fined for testosterone overdoses administered to some patients.
Dr Minciună stated he had gone to the US to train under Dr Runels. “I have been doing P-Shots in Romania for five years. This is for the penis. Meanwhile, I also had the opportunity to witness the procedure for the female parts. This was also recommended to me by him. I’m a urologist.”
In 2021 he began selling this procedure to clients he encountered in his capacity as head of urology at a state hospital in Bucharest. As of 2025, he was still providing this treatment at a private clinic.
O ur investigation documents an industry that flourishes in the dark. There is a section of our society, backed by certain politicians, that fears sex education. This has resulted in women’s health problems being treated by doctors who can take advantage of the fact that the population is so under-informed.
PRP is just one of many so-called ‘vaginal rejuvenation’ procedures without solid scientific foundation sold by hundreds of Romanian clinics as miracle cures for real and imaginary problems. Social media, advertising, and television shows make women feel that something is wrong with them. Women are convinced that they need a doctor to fix their vagina, labia, or hymen – all for a hefty price. Marketed as a form of female liberation, these surgeries are in fact a new method for exploiting women.
In 2025, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) launched an appeal to gynaecologists around the world, warning once again that there is no “solid evidence and published research to support the claim that cosmetic genital surgery is safe and effective”.
FIGO states that “it is ethically inappropriate for obstetrician-gynaecologists to recommend, perform, or refer patients for these procedures. Women should receive counselling and be informed that these procedures are not medically indicated and come with potential risks.”
Professional associations of gynaecologists from the USA, Canada, and the UK, have taken a similar stance in recent years, trying to inform the general public about the dangers of procedures at the margins of medical practice, and to hold doctors responsible for their actions.
But in Romania, all is quiet. Gynaecological societies and specialist committees at the Ministry of Health and the College of Physicians are primarily led by the same doctors who are involved with the cosmetic gynaecology industry. Some even have clinics where they carry out such procedures.
Experiments using radio waves
Ilinca is an artist, one of the exquisite figures of the cultural scene in Bucharest. She has a cheerful manner and almost implausible energy when you think about everything she has been through.
Dr Minciună had told Ilinca that he had to carry out several massage sessions in the genital area, using gel and a radiofrequency device. TECAR is usually used for muscle recovery and in sports medicine. Its application in genital procedures is considered experimental. The FDA has been warning since 2018 that the use of devices based on electromagnetic energy, such as TECAR “may lead to serious adverse events” and that “the safety and effectiveness of energy-based devices to perform vaginal ‘rejuvenation’ or cosmetic vaginal procedures has not been established”. In 2025, a manufacturer of TECAR devices warned that its product was being marketed for uses other than those for which it had been authorised.
Transfer of Energy Capacitive and Resistive therapy – a non-invasive physiotherapy treatment using radiofrequency energy to speed natural tissue healing, reduce pain, and improve function for musculoskeletal issues, arthritis, and sports injuries by stimulating blood flow and cellular activity through soft and deep tissue modes.In Romania, radiofrequency treatments continue to be sold to women, although the risks include vaginal burns, scars, chronic pain, and even the proliferation of cancer cells in case of malignant tumours. Meanwhile, the benefits have not been evidenced by any serious study.
Another client, Ioana, visited the same doctor for the same procedure, a combination of TECAR and O-Shots. She was persuaded by the initial enthusiasm of Ilinca, a close friend. “It was extremely painful and led to no results,” Ioana now sums up bitterly. Like Ilinca, she didn’t complete her sessions, paid for in advance. She wanted to accompany Ilinca to ask for a refund, and to report the doctor. But a feeling of embarrassment and a lack of belief in being taken seriously sapped their determination: “People will say you are crazy.”
A few years later – after giving birth – Ioana discovered that she had cervical cancer and an inoperable tumour. “I don’t know whether these two things are connected, I don’t know whether it was the intervention that had caused it,” she sighs. “In any case, I’m fuming about the whole medical system in Romania.”
The pain
Ilinca’s consultations began, she recounts, with questions about her sexual fantasies. “What porn are you watching?”, he quizzed her, claiming it was part of the process of discovering where her blockage came from.
“He concluded that I had numb pleasure receptors. He departed from the premise that I didn’t manage to have an orgasm because something had happened to my intimate area. Its vascularisation wasn’t adequate,” Ilinca recalls, laughing. “Now I’m laughing, but it took me three years of therapy. Honestly, I think I looked like easy prey. It’s only natural, seeing how traumatised I was by my father. It was easy for me to fall into the net of such men, who take one look at you and see that you are willing to put them on a pedestal. And then, they can get away with whatever they want.” Her father’s abuse taught her to always find excuses for the aggressors, she explains. That’s why she stayed, even though she should have run away.
At the TECAR sessions, the doctor was asking her to only wear her bra, she recalls. He was massaging her intimate area with a heated device. He told her that the gel had to enter the skin to prepare it for the O-Shot. Eventually he announced that the day had come to give her the revolutionary injection.
She had to undress again. The nurse took a blood sample, which was put into a centrifuge to separate out the plasma. Unsure what to do, the nurse told the doctor that she didn’t have any anaesthetic cream. It’s okay, the doctor said, it doesn’t hurt.
“He put that needle into me, just about everywhere, into my labia, above and inside, at the entrance to the vagina. I screamed with pain. It couldn’t be clearer that I was in pain, screaming, ‘I can’t take this anymore!’ With the same needle, he injected me at least 15 times. It was pure torture,” Ilinca recounts.
“I don’t know what to say regarding this matter,” said Dr Minciună upon being questioned about the incident. “Each and every patient perceives these things in their own way. At this point, I can’t tell you how much or how little it hurt her. Believe me, with so many patients, I simply don’t know,” he insisted. “It may be so. If you tell me the name of the patient, I will try to search the register and remember what happened.”
Ilinca couldn’t look at the doctor, instead fixing her gaze on the nurse. “She was terrified. Frozen. And I was screaming as loud as I could,” she says. “The most painful thing was when he injected me near the urethra. I lost it. I couldn’t believe I was going through something like this and was accepting it.” She begged him to stop. Finally, he agreed to do so, although he appeared dissatisfied that he hadn’t got to inject all the areas he had planned. Maybe in a year, he said.
“I won’t do anything like this ever again in my life,” Ilinca promised herself. “I was so shocked, I remember feeling like an idiot for accepting this.” She recounts the doctor telling her that pain was a good sign, indicating that her issues were “not of a physical nature” and that her “system is intact”.
On her way out, she called Ioana to ask if it had hurt her this much. Not quite so much, Ioana said. But it had hurt rather badly.
“When I got out of there, I was walking bow-legged,” Ilinca says. “I was confused, all I wanted was to swear like a trooper, then to cry. I felt assaulted. What on earth was that? I even paid for it! Why wasn’t I smarter than that? How did this happen?”
But then she started doubting herself again. What if the problem was actually with her? What if other women reacted better to pain? She decided to go back one more time. There were still some TECAR sessions left that she had paid for. And after all, saving up all that money had not been easy.
Forced masturbation as a “medical act”
On this occasion, Ilinca says that the nurse was no longer present, only Dr Minciună.
“He made me lie on the table. He told me: ‘Relax, lie down.’ My breasts were uncovered. I don’t recall whether he told me to undress or not. I could feel his fingers rubbing my clitoris in a circular movement. I was lying there, uptight and jittery, I didn’t understand what was going on. I asked, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m trying to stimulate you, to provoke an orgasm,’” he answered.
“You’d say this was a scene from a Caragiale farce… I replied ‘It doesn’t work like this. I can’t get turned on by you. I look at my boyfriend, if I am to get horny. It doesn’t work that way, you won’t succeed.’ I was anxious, you know. The nurse wasn’t there, because I don’t think he would have dared to do this in her presence. So, I said ‘Enough, stop!’”
Caragiale farce Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912) was a major Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theatre manager, political commentator and journalist. He is best known for his satirical comedies.These words are Ilinca’s testimony.
She got off the table and put her clothes on. It seemed incredible to her that this could be a medical act. Once out of the clinic, she called Ioana: “What if I was 18 or 19, and hadn’t fully matured! I’d be traumatised by this for life. Because yes, it is traumatic. You simply can’t comprehend how such a thing is possible.”
“Heaven forbid! Not at all, no way! Who has come up with this idea?”, Dr Minciună reacted in response to our questioning. “Why didn’t she contact … why didn’t she contact me?”
But Ilinca insists that she told him there and then how inappropriate it was to try to give her an orgasm. She wrote to a female doctor she had met at an exhibition to ask her if it was normal for a male doctor to masturbate a patient. “No way, such a procedure isn’t medically acceptable, you shock me!”, the gynaecologist replied – and invited her to see her at her practice. But she didn’t advise Ilinca to make a complaint to the College of Physicians or to any of the other relevant institutions. She didn’t even ask what the doctor’s name was.
Through therapy, Ilinca was able to find out the reason why she wasn’t having an orgasm. After several cases of abuse, both in her relationship and back home as a child, she was no longer able to trust men. “I was afraid they would kill me.”
It would have been better to opt for therapy from the very beginning rather than going through the “miracle” treatments of this doctor, she says today. “But he’s a doctor and you are supposed to trust them. You are in a position of vulnerability in front of a medical doctor. How does he have the gall to do such a thing?”, she wonders, still very agitated.
This is a situation many doctors take advantage of. Some are employed in state hospitals.
The pseudoscience of the vagina
Cosmetic gynaecology has boomed in recent years. The growing demand is influenced by, amongst other things, “advertisements on social media and, to some extent, by the pornographic images and content readily available over the internet”, as observed by two doctors in an article for the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, published last year. “Currently,” the authors continue, there is “no robust scientific evidence available in regard to the safety and long-term outcomes of these procedures. Misleading marketing of these procedures has led to exploitation, especially of vulnerable populations like adolescents. There are also concerns that women might not be fully aware of the risks and potential long-term complications of a failed procedure requiring remedial surgeries, which can have irreversible implications on a woman’s physical, mental and emotional health.”
Medical associations worldwide have asserted for years that there isn’t enough evidence to back these procedures. Doctors have a duty, first, to provide women with information on the anatomy, hygiene, and sexual health of their bodies. Only after that has happened should they discuss the possibility of surgery with their patients.
Reasons for choosing surgery vary: body dysmorphia, depression, even social and familial pressure. A third of women who request vaginoplasty (tightening of the vaginal orifice or of the vaginal walls) say that they do it for the sexual satisfaction of their partners. One in three who opt for labiaplasty (reducing the size of the labia minor) say they have received negative remarks about their labia from partners.
Many of the Romanian clinics that sell labiaplasties have ‘before and after’ sections in their prospectuses, with explicit photographs of vulval surgery. This practice is discouraged in other countries because it is considered deceptive advertising and against human dignity, creating unrealistic expectations of women’s anatomy.
As a field, cosmetic gynaecology is characterised by an absence: an absence of protocols, studies, and evidence. Within Romania, there is also a lack of professional ethics, patient care and truly informed consent. Between cosmetics and medicine there is a grey area, in which science is replaced by marketing.
Vaginoplasty brought to you by an AUR parliamentarian
Women are told on the site vaginoplastie.ro that “among the most common complications of labiaplasty are discomfort and oedema, the swelling of body tissue due to excess fluids”. The website says that these effects are caused by failing to observe the mandatory rest period of several weeks, “which patients find hard to accept”. In other words, the blame is laid upon the patient if something happens to them after an operation.
There is no mention of the fact that the labia are sexual response organs that contain erectile tissue, or that they also have an important role in protecting the vaginal orifice. The implications of labial reduction for sexual function haven’t been sufficiently studied. Reducing the size of labia, writes Dr Jen Gunter, a gynaecologist and activist against medical disinformation and the author of The Vagina Bible, should be likened to reducing penis size. Only men are not offered an operation to ‘correct’ the size of their penis. Women, in contrast, are encouraged to offer themselves up to the knife.
Vaginoplastie.ro is owned by Dr Costache Chertif, a promoter of rejuvenation operations in Romania who runs a clinic which undertakes these and other procedures. Dr Chertif was for many years head of the unit at the Baia Mare Hospital. He is a member of numerous cosmetic surgery associations. He is also on the Health Committee of the Romanian Senate.
Dr Costache Chertif (born 1955) is a plastic surgeon and AUR politician, who was elected as a senator in 2024 to represent the County of Maramureș. In his right of reply to the original article, Dr Chertif insisted “the author pursued neither the truth nor the phenomenon in question, only wanted to discredit me through populist and mendacious ridicule – of the kind ‘look how this guy has made this fortune, thanks to the vagina!’”Che. Cosmedica SRL, a company Dr Chertif owns and used to create his private clinic – where he also carries out breast lifts and hymenoplasties – has brought in a profit of about €6 million (approximately £5 million or $7 million) in the last five years. In his declaration of assets Dr Chertif includes, among others, gold bars worth €800,000 (approximately £700,000 or $950,000). Since 2024, Chertif has made it onto the AUR parliamentary list in the Senate, and from there onto the Senate Health Committee. All the while, his AUR colleagues demonise sex education.
AUR The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor) is a right-wing populist party in Romania.“Current social trends, characterised by a greater acceptance of nudity thanks in particular to the Internet, encourage women to choose cosmetic genital surgery.” This information is gleaned from a 2018 advertisement for Dr Chertif’s clinic. Exposure to pornography really does alter the perception of the vulva. This is why, according to the international scientific community, one of the duties of doctors when a woman asks for such a procedure is to assure her that there is no such thing as perfect labia and that surgery is a solution in only a very small percentage of cases, for example, in cases when post-traumatic reconstruction is warranted.
The same press release states that: “International stars such as Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Sharon Osbourne and Brandi Glanville have stated at various times that they have opted for ‘vaginal rejuvenation’ and been extremely pleased with the result.”
One of the many treatments offered by Chertif are hymenoplasties, at a cost of between €2,000-3,000. Vaginoplastie.ro offers the following, contradictory, description: “The hymen is a membrane that partially covers the vaginal opening. When it is anatomically intact, we talk about virginity. Medical data from specialist literature confirms that a woman can be pregnant and yet have an intact hymen.” Indeed, 19 per cent of sexually-active women have an intact hymen. It has long been accepted by modern science that the story of blood on the bedsheets is just a historical symbol of control over female sexuality.
| In his right of reply to Snoop’s investigation, and by way of justifying his membership of the Senate Health Committee, Chertif insists “the regulation of this area cannot be undertaken by politicians or investigative journalists, but by specialists in the field”. He contends that the publication of vulval surgery photos before and after the operation on his clinic’s website cannot be considered false advertising: “That would mean that those photos are doctored with the intention of deceiving willing patients.” Questioned on the UK government’s decision to ban hymenoplasty based on data from the Netherlands, Chertif states that this data is not relevant for Romania. He claims Snoop cites outdated articles from a time such procedures were in their infancy, noting: “It’s like citing reactions to the appearance of steam trains at a time when, these days, trains travel at the speed of an aeroplane”. |
Hymenoplasty is banned in the UK and harshly criticised in other countries. Researchers consider it a form of violence against women because, in most cases, it is an unnecessary medical intervention that completes the cycle of abuse based on the belief that a woman’s integrity is guaranteed by an intact hymen.
In the UK, doctors who perform a hymenoplasty risk five years in prison and/or a serious fine. In Romania, doctors make a tidy profit from this procedure, earning several thousand euros for each reconstructed hymen.
“Restoring virginity is requested by girls from families with traditional religious backgrounds, regardless of their educational, cultural, and economic status, as well as those from the Muslim, Roma, Armenian, and Jewish communities,” a plastic surgeon explained in 2013 for Romania TV. Another doctor added to this that “A new category of customers has emerged. They ask for the restoration of their virginity, which they want to offer to their husbands as a gift on various occasions. Some are preparing year after year for their annual visit to the cosmetic surgery clinic.”
Do women seek this procedure “for the men in their lives or, from a social point of view, [do] they do this for themselves?”, Dr Chertif muses. He offers his own response: “we believe that women want this type of surgery for the sake of their own personal image, not because they are dominated by men.”
However, the data contradicts the AUR parliamentarian. For example, 80 per cent of women in the Netherlands who opted for hymenoplasty said they had been afraid of the repercussions associated with not being perceived as virgins. Half of them feared being ostracised by their families; 12 per cent were even convinced they would be the victims of honour killings.
Dr Chertif’s view is further contradicted by experts who liken genital cosmetic surgery to genital mutilation, still practised in many traditional societies in African or Arab countries. Both procedures are imposed by sociocultural norms irrespective of whether it is an issue of women’s ‘purity’ or ‘beauty’, as specialists from the World Health Organization explain. Professor Ronan Conroy, of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, believes it is hypocritical to claim that women freely choose to modify their bodies.
Hymenoplasty, labiaplasty, vaginoplasty and the entire arsenal of ‘rejuvenation’ procedures are sold to Romanian women by gynaecologists, beauticians, and urologists – sometimes even at beauty clinics – as essentially cosmetic treatments, or as miracle remedies for real medical problems. All this happens without clinical guidelines or evidence, with promises lifted straight from the manufacturers’ brochures. Many of these procedures have limited effect, making women repeat customers for their doctors.
In his right of reply, Dr Chertif asserts that “cosmetic gynaecology surgery is not a fad. It is a modern and necessary branch [of surgery] that restores quality of life, femininity and dignity.” He believes “there is an urgent need for regulation in cosmetic gynaecology surgery, for very simple reasons: work is carried out in a highly sensitive area with functional, sexual, psychological and even ethical implications, and the state has the obligation to protect patients and guarantee the quality of the medical act.” Regulations should involve the standardisation of skills, protocols, health controls, and legal responsibilities – but also a legal framework for innovative treatments, the doctor continues.
In connection with a potential ban on hymenoplasty in Romania, Dr Chertif believes that “the fact that the UK prohibits this procedure doesn’t automatically mean that we must ban it, too. In Romania, the right approach is to protect women and guarantee their autonomy through regulation, not through a total ban.” This type of surgery “should be prohibited only if coercion is suspected” and it should be carried out only with “informed and detailed consent”, following a “psychological assessment in order to ensure the exclusion of external pressures”.
Asked about his stance on sex education, the AUR Senator replied: “I’m not against health education. I am against sexualising children. AUR defends the family, and I, as a doctor, defend the health of children. The two values go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive.”
Experimental procedures reimbursed by the state
“Rediscover trust in yourself. You feel good when you feel YOU.”
This is the kind of messaging that usually accompanies advertisements for so-called rejuvenation procedures.
“Love every part of yourself. You decide how you can feel good in your own body.”
Amongst these there is an ad for a postnatal recovery clinic including a paid-for post about their podcast on urinary incontinence and the role of vaginal PRP. The guest speaker on the podcast was Andreea Borislavschi, a gynaecologist at the Elias Hospital in Bucharest. She works at the unit led by Dr Radu Vlădăreanu, a well-known name in Romanian gynaecology. There is even a special promotion: “Giveaway for a lucky participant – a free vaginal PRP session at the Elias Hospital.” In other words, an experimental procedure which will be paid for and undertaken at a state hospital is being offered up on Instagram.
“Stop normalising urinary incontinence” – so begins the Instagram Live ad. “Stop thinking it’s something embarrassing or shameful. Be in the know about solutions.”
At first, it all sounds like a straightforward standard-issue health education initiative. Then the doctor from Elias Hospital talks about how she came to perform experimental vaginal PRP treatment at a state hospital.
“I wanted to explore a method, a different, safe method, that doesn’t involve major risks and doesn’t require long recovery periods.” She describes PRP as an alternative to surgery. But international guidelines on the treatment of urinary incontinence do not start with surgery, anyway, but rather with Kegel exercises. “First and foremost, as advised by guidelines, I also recommend pelvic re-education at the first consultation,” the doctor acknowledges. But if that is the case, why then is the giveaway an instant invitation to a PRP session?
In France, women who give birth are offered at least 10 recovery sessions where they can learn from midwives or kinesiotherapists about exercises that help them tone their pelvic floor muscles. In Romania, there is no such programme. In the absence of recovery support after childbirth, women can more easily fall prey to miracle treatments.
“A minimally invasive and elegant method of treatment for urinary incontinence, with only three visits to the doctor.” This is how PRP is presented in their webinar. Elias is the only state hospital in the country where PRP is done in this way. “It’s still not reimbursed as a procedure”, but there are ways to claim back money if it can be “classed as a medical condition”.
Reimbursed The Romanian health system is publicly funded through the National Health Insurance Fund (Casa Națională de Asigurări de Sănătate), which guarantees access to primary, secondary, and tertiary assistance under the Constitution. It operates on the basis of a so-called health card, through which services, managed by the Ministry of Health, can be accessed.
The treatment for urinary incontinence with vaginal PRP can be reimbursed via the Romanian National Health Insurance system, even if specialists warn that we do not yet know whether it is safe or effective. In theory, such an experimental procedure can be carried out at a state hospital as a clinical trial. But in that case, participants should not be chosen by a lottery on Instagram without being informed in advance of what they are participating in.After I sent my questions to Dr Vlădăreanu, the post announcing the webinar and the Live disappeared from Instagram.
At present, there is no medical approval and recommendation for exosome therapy, it hasn’t gone through the clinical research phases, and it isn’t yet known whether it is a safe procedure
Do you deserve to be happy? Have surgery!
“This webinar is for women who think they deserve to feel happy at any age.” Over Zoom, Dr Georgescu swears an oath: “I promise that it will change your life!”
In a childlike voice he assures us of his dedication “to help ladies get pregnant” and rid themselves of a range of unpleasant conditions such as urinary incontinence, vaginal dryness, and discomfort at sexual contact. He urges us to stay until the end of the webinar, because “We will find out what is the cause of your problems”, but especially because “I have a surprise for you, which you will see at the very end and, of course, you may even win it.”
The webinar is called ‘Regain your femininity’ and was organised on a late October evening in 2025 by the Ladies Excellence Clinic run by Dr Diana Mihai.
Dr Mihai is a gynaecologist and the president of the Romanian Society of Cosmetic Gynaecology (SREG), an NGO founded in 2021 and endorsed by leading specialists in the world of Romanian gynaecology, such as professors at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMF) and heads of committees at the Ministry of Health and the College of Physicians.
Romanian Society of Cosmetic Gynaecology Societațiea Română de Estetică Ginecologică (SREG).SREG sells training courses for various unproven procedures, led by doctors from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. It organises an annual gala where awards are handed out for best performance in the field and puts its logo on marketing webinars such as ‘Regain your femininity’.
“There is evidence. I mean, if you look on PubMed, I include references to research in all the presentations and courses that I do. There is a lot of specialist literature on these treatments on PubMed,” contends Dr Mihai.
Over the following two hours, Doctor Georgescu runs through dozens of slides including information about dietary supplements, invented protocols and “guaranteed” results. Under cover of a speech promising to restore women’s self-confidence, the doctor delivers healing using controversial methods.
For example, urinary incontinence can be solved with “a number of sessions using the Emsella chair” (at a cost of RON350, approximately £60 per session), the doctor tells us. We could just do Kegel exercises at home, but the problem with the latter is “that we tend to forget to do them”.
Four advertisements for the Emsella chair are rolled out in the course of the webinar. All feature the logo of the manufacturer, a company called BTL Industries. BTL was previously told by the FDA to stop false advertising for another device, also offered by the Ladies Excellence Clinic. This device was not authorised for vaginal use, but only on facial wrinkles.
Emsella chair A pelvic floor physiotherapy treatment alleged to improve quality of life for those with serious urinary incontinence.According to the presentation, Dr Mihai, and the manufacturer’s brochure, the Esmella chair has a success rate of 95 per cent. This statistic has not been confirmed by any independent studies.
Dr Georgescu also promises rehabilitation through exosome therapy, especially recommended for “ladies with vaginal dryness” and for those who have “lichen sclerosus” – “a lesion that occurs in the vaginal area”. At present, there is no medical approval and recommendation for exosome therapy, it hasn’t gone through the clinical research phases, and it isn’t yet known whether it is a safe procedure.
Exosome therapy A treatment that allegedly promotes cell proliferation, migration, and differentiation, helping in the regeneration of damaged tissues, such as skin, bone, and cartilage.
Lichen sclerosus A condition that causes patchy, discoloured, thin skin. It usually affects the genital and anal areas.
Even less so in the case of a diagnosis such as lichen sclerosus, for which international medical guidelines recommend only conventional dermatological treatment and careful monitoring.
There are FDA warnings dating back to 2019 about clinics that “deceive their patients with unfounded claims about the potential of these products to prevent, treat or cure various diseases and ailments”. The most recent is from 2025. The promotion of these products is considered to be in the realm of pseudoscience, offered for purely commercial purposes.
“I don’t think the webinar mentioned exosome therapy,” Dr Mihai observes when asked about it by Snoop. A few minutes later, however, she accepts that she is familiar with the content of the webinar “because I made the presentation”. She acknowledges that there should be guidelines about good practice but concludes that the devices spoken about are just tools. She compares them to a “scalpel – you chose what to do with it”.
It is as important for doctors to have expensive devices at their disposal, just like we have different car brands: “Oltcit and BMW, and Rolls-Royce”. Each one offers something different. She insists on the comparison when discussing the international medical community’s opposition to these treatments, and why she thinks it is flawed. “It would be like saying that just because you go somewhere by car, you’re going to have an accident. Sure, it could happen – but it’s also about who is driving, the street, and lots of other things.”
A question pops up in the webinar chat, asking if these procedures are safe and internationally approved? Dr Georgescu reassures the person: yes, just like the HPV vaccine.
Marketing disguised as guidance
Vaginal dryness can be resolved with lasers, states Dr Georgescu in the next part of her seminar. She describes this tool as “our friend, who helps us a lot and is very comfortable”. But there is a glaring omission here. She doesn’t mention whether the cause of the dryness might also be an important consideration – whether it’s menopause, breastfeeding, oncological treatment, endocrine disorders, antidepressant medication or simply environmental factors. In her telling of it, all that matters is the miracle solution.
But vaginal laser treatment should come with an explicit warning. Side-effects can be serious, including vaginal burns, scars, and chronic pain. Studies have shown the treatment is ineffective. A laser session at the Ladies Excellence linic costs RON2,750 (approximately £468). A package of three sessions costs RON9,000 (£1,532).
“We are deeply concerned that women are being harmed,” FDA commissioners wrote back in 2018. They warned that an increasing number of companies are promoting so-called vaginal rejuvenation procedures, presented as solutions for symptoms of the menopause, urinary incontinence, or sexual functions. In reality, these interventions using lasers or other forms of electrical energy can cause serious damage, and their effectiveness has not been scientifically proven. “The deceptive marketing of a dangerous procedure with no proven benefit, including to women who’ve been treated for cancer, is egregious,” the FDA observed. According to Dr Mihai’s website, laser procedures are painless and without adverse effects.
Contacted by phone, the president of the SREG told us that in France or Spain laser-based interventions would be reimbursed as a treatment for vaginal dryness after treatment for breast cancer. We have not found anything from official sources to back this claim.
In a case reported in the US, a woman who was persuaded by her doctor to pre-empt possible urinary infections by using the MonaLisa Touch, the same laser used by the Ladies Excellence Clinic, was left in such pain that she even contemplated suicide.
In Romania, we have no idea what effect these procedures have on women. Neither do we know how much money doctors make from selling them. That said, in the last three years, Dr Mihai’s companies have enjoyed revenues of RON7,585,408 (approximately £1.3 million or $1.8 million).
Pay now and receive the free gifts, creams, and food supplements you were shown earlier in the webinar, says the doctor. “I show them to you, to entice you.” By the end, the webinar has turned into a teleshopping opportunity. The doctor’s mask is slipping.
The Romanian Medical Code of Ethics prohibits covert marketing and the commercial promotion of products: “Doctors cannot use their professional titles to directly or indirectly promote products, medical equipment, procedures or commercial services.”
Dr Mihai says she doesn’t understand “what the problem is”. She says, “It’s normal. There is no way I can treat women with my gaze. I would treat them if I could. I need these products and I also need these devices.” She does not find it unethical to recommend certain treatments by particular manufacturers because she wants women to be aware of “the best option”. “I want my patients to be able to make an informed decision,” Dr Mihai concludes.
Romanian clinics that sell rejuvenation or cosmetic gynaecology procedures almost always include the term ‘Dr’ in their names. That way, women are reassured of the medical seriousness of what takes place there.
Courses on how to get rich for doctors
Dr Mihai doesn’t only organise free webinars for patients, but also fee-paying training courses for doctors.
For example, on the ‘Exclusive Webinar for Gynaecologists: Learn the Most Modern and Effective Procedures to help you Generate Substantial Profits’, doctors will be taught:
- “How to ensure being fully booked without relying only on recommendations
- How to get patients to learn about your premium treatments and make them want to opt for them
- How to use technology and AI to attract patients and give them a premium experience
- What are the most profitable, effective and sought-after procedures in 2025.”
One of the tutors on the course is touted as “a specialist in growth and marketing strategies who has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and companies to scale up their businesses. His strategies have generated over 50 million USD (£37 million) in revenue last year alone.” On his TikTok account, the specialist explains to teenagers how, instead of just scrolling on social media, they would be better off making content – and money.
This particular course is offered “under the patronage of the Romanian Society of Aesthetic Gynaecology and Regenerative Medicine (SREG)”, the NGO led by Dr Mihai. Every year, SREG holds a gala for doctors who carry out vulvoplasty and rejuvenation treatments. In 2025, the event took place at the Romanian National Opera. Gynaecologists talked about the success of scientifically unvalidated procedures, handed out awards to one another, got dressed up, danced, cut cake, and enjoyed the free champagne bar.
A female doctor from Moscow gave a lecture about inserting wires into the walls of the vagina to make it “tight”, a procedure without clinical backing. A doctor from Turkey even taught his colleagues in a classroom at the University of Medicine in Bucharest how to administer hyaluronic acid injections and fat transfer in the genital area. None of these methods are recommended by the international scientific community due to the absolute absence of studies, and the potential undesirable side-effects, including tissue necrosis, chronic infection, scarring, and pain. Marketing specialists were also present, with an English-language workshop on how to transform yourself from a doctor into a brand, and how to build a commercially successful medical clinic.
The invited foreign doctors are members of international associations operating in parallel with specialist societies recognised by the scientific community. They are reference points in aesthetic gynaecology in their home countries, where they organise their own galas and own courses. In this ecosystem, they mutually legitimise and reward one another.
This is just one example of the clubs of professionals who find Romania to be fertile ground for scientifically unproven procedures. Other such groupings can be found in the Ministry of Health, the College of Physicians, and the University Medical School.
The power nexus of Romanian gynaecology and questions for the future of fertility treatment
In 2024, Dr Radu Vlădăreanu, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Elias Hospital, submitted his candidacy to become vice-president of the society led by Dr Mihai.
In his letter of application to SREG, he said that he wanted to transform aesthetic gynaecology into a branch of gynaecology, and to develop treatments for infertility using PRP and stem cell injections. Of course, he praised the high standards of excellence and efforts to advance aesthetic gynaecology in Romania.
When contacted by Snoop, Dr Vlădăreanu declared there is no conflict of interest between his various positions: university professor, roles with the Ministry of Health and with multiple medical associations, and his hospital job. “My roles do not overlap, but are complementary,” he said: “This is an absolutely normal and common situation in all medical specialities: many university professors are simultaneously members of scientific societies and management structures at the College of Physicians or the Ministry [of Health]. I am myself a member of advisory committees, both at the College of Physicians and the Ministry of Health, but do not have a managerial role.”
The doctor points out that SREG “has an exclusively educational role” and that it “promotes technologies and procedures that are perfectly legal in Romania: medical devices with European safety, registered at the National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of Romania (NAMMDR), used throughout Europe and endorsed by a growing number of scientific studies. We do not promote experimental procedures, but evidence-based education.”
As for the warnings raised by the US FDA or the international scientific community, Dr Vlădăreanu insisted they didn’t prohibit the technologies as such, but rather challenged “the way certain procedures are marketed”. Dr Vlădăreanu’s name appears on the front page of the brochure for the 2024 gala.
Another leading doctor in the field, Dr Elvira Brătilă, professor at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest and a co-founder of SREG, told Snoop she has since withdrawn from the society and had no connection with events organised under its name. “The reason behind my decision is the inclusion of gynaecological rejuvenation in recent years,” she said. Her name and images had been used by SREG without her consent, she said, adding that this had happened to other colleagues, too.
Her name also appeared on the website of Dr Mihai’s clinic in a brochure about the treatment of infertility using PRP and stem cells, alongside three doctors from India. She told Snoop she hadn’t given consent for this either. She noted that such treatments, while not recommended internationally, are also not prohibited, given some studies supporting their effectiveness.
The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, meanwhile, has warned that stem cell injections pose a serious risk of tumour formation, and that “a detailed description of the health of infants born after such treatment modalities is not available”.
Dr Mihai says she always informs her patients that she is not selling them a miracle cure for infertility: “It is a way to try to improve the ovarian response a little.” She adds that there are several different types of stem cell and international warnings refer to other procedures, not the ones she performs in the clinic for several thousand euros a pop.
The academic expert Virginia Braun believes that aesthetic gynaecology in Romania urgently needs to exercise a far greater dose of caution, with more regulation and far more solid justifications for the procedures used.
“The notion of ethics around care becomes incredibly fuzzy in the case of highly marketed procedures which formulate hyperbolic claims about their transformative potential, which are neither based on solid evidence nor, in some cases, even the most tenuous evidence,” she says.
What can women do in the meantime? Look for spaces of resistance in the face of a culture of perfection, Braun believes. Though she admits this is very difficult to do when you are being told every day to be the best version of yourself.
It is for this very reason that the primary responsibility must rest on the shoulders of the medical community.
