The changing face of European healthcare education: The Hungarian experience

Abstract

Throughout Europe, higher education is undergoing great changes in order to establish what is being called the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on the Bologna process. The goal being the establishment of a uniform, transparent and efficient development of professionals in a higher education system that can react in a flexible way to the changes in the labor market, and to the challenges presented by increasing globalization. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the Bologna process and to give a summary of the implemented initial stages in the health care higher education of Hungary. As a consequence, the Hungarian higher education in healthcare has undergone considerable reforms to facilitate transition into this new system. The results indicate that the new structure in health sciences is not compatible with other way of European countries of introducing Bologna reforms, although the content of the former BSc curriculum still remained the same. MSc programs are still being discussed.