Medicul apasă compresa ca și cum rana ar fi serioasă.

Those endings are the definite article in Romanian, attached to the end of the noun.

• medic = doctor

• medicul = the doctor

• compresă = compress / gauze pad

• compresa = the compress

• rană = wound
• rana = the wound

This is very common in Romanian: instead of putting a separate word like the before the noun, Romanian usually adds it to the noun itself.

Apasă is the 3rd person singular present of a apăsa = to press.

So:

• eu apăs = I press
• tu apeși = you press
• el/ea apasă = he/she presses

In this sentence, the subject is medicul, so apasă means the doctor presses or the doctor is pressing. Romanian present tense can often cover both simple present and present continuous, depending on context.

Because Romanian usually uses a postposed article, meaning the definite article comes after the noun, not before it.

So instead of:

• the doctor
• the wound

Romanian has:

• medicul
• rana

This is one of the first big differences English speakers notice in Romanian.

Here, compresa is the direct object of the verb: the doctor is pressing the compress.

In Romanian, direct objects usually appear without a preposition:

• apasă compresa = presses the compress

If you say apasă pe compresă, that changes the nuance to something more like presses on the compress.

So the version without pe treats compresa as the thing being pressed; the version with pe would focus more on the surface or location being pressed on.

Ca și cum is a fixed expression meaning as if.

So:

• ca și cum rana ar fi serioasă = as if the wound were serious

You should learn ca și cum as a single expression. Even though și often means and, here the whole phrase works together idiomatically.

A similar Romanian expression is de parcă, which can also mean as if.

Because after ca și cum, Romanian often uses the conditional to express something hypothetical, uncertain, or only apparent.

• rana este serioasă = the wound is serious
• rana ar fi serioasă = the wound would be serious / were serious

In this sentence, the speaker is not directly stating that the wound really is serious. The idea is that the doctor is acting as if it were serious.

So ar fi helps create that unreal or hypothetical meaning.

No. Here ar fi is the conditional present of a fi.

It may look a little like English would be, but in this sentence it refers to a present hypothetical situation:

• ca și cum rana ar fi serioasă = as if the wound were serious

If you wanted a past hypothetical meaning, you would usually get something like:

• ar fi fost = would have been / had been

So:

• ar fi = would be
• ar fi fost = would have been

Because serioasă agrees with rana, and rană is a feminine singular noun.

In Romanian, adjectives must agree with the noun in gender and number.

So:

• un medic serios = a serious doctor
• o rană serioasă = a serious wound

Even though serioasă comes after ar fi, it still describes rana, so it must match it.

Not necessarily.

The sentence says:

• The doctor presses the compress as if the wound were serious.

That means the speaker is describing the doctor’s behavior or manner. It suggests appearance, impression, or comparison, but it does not directly confirm the wound is serious.

So the wound may be serious, or it may simply be treated that way.

Both medic and doctor exist in Romanian, but medic is very common for doctor / physician in ordinary usage.

• medic = doctor, physician
• doctor can also mean doctor, but it may sometimes sound more like a title or be used in certain contexts

So medicul here is perfectly natural and very common.

The main special letters here are:

• ă in apasă and rană
• ș in și and serioasă

A simple guide:

• ă is a short central vowel, something like the a in English sofa
• ș sounds like English sh

So:

• apasă sounds roughly like ah-PA-suh
• și sounds like sh
• rană sounds roughly like RA-nuh
• serioasă sounds roughly like se-ree-OA-suh

These are only approximations, but they help at the beginning.

They express very different ideas.

• ca și cum rana ar fi serioasă = as if the wound were serious
  This describes appearance, impression, or comparison.

• pentru că rana este serioasă = because the wound is serious
  This gives a real reason and states the wound is serious as a fact.

So the original sentence is more cautious and indirect. It does not commit the speaker to saying the wound truly is serious.