Ovidiu Nicolae Palea was born in Blaj, a small town in the heart of Transylvania. He graduated from the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in 1989 and continued on graduating from his residency program in Anesthesiology at George Washington University Hospital, Washington DC, the USA in 2003. After graduating from an Intensive Care fellowship from the same University Hospital a year later, he continued to work at Washington Hospital Center until the end of 2009 when he returned for good to Romania. He started his pain management practice in 2011, being the first Romanian to be accredited in Pain Management by the World Institute of Pain in august 2017. In 2018, his practice became the only Medical training facility in Eastern and Central Europe to be approved as a training facility by the European Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Therapy. He has extensive expertise in spine endoscopy, holds regular workshops in a wide variety of minimally invasive pain management procedures across the world, and has been included in the list of approved examiners by the World Institute of Pain.

Dr Palea is the Founder of Provita Medical Center Romania.