Who was Ana Aslan?
Ana Aslan is renowned for her essential contribution to gerontological research as well as for having patterned the best geriatric treatment influencing the aging process. Ana Aslan was the first person to rule out the fatalistic approach to aging, providing a new method in gerontology by opening the way to the prevention and treatment of old age. I worked with Professor Ana Aslan for 25 years, from 1963, first as a researcher, then as chief physician and afterwards as the Director of the National Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics in Bucharest, Romania, between 1978 and 1990. In the last 3 years of her life, Aslan chose me as her personal physician and three months before her death she asked me to do some personal things, including to write a book about her life and her work. So I took notes at her bedside as a moral testament. In addition to her life, she talked of her views of politics, religion, euthanasia, dying, death and love. As such I had the opportunity to know her priva
