Hungarian Doctors Research Articles

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAND WASHING IN THE HOSPITAL ENVIRONMENT

Knowing that hospitals are institutions to promote healing and care for citizens who need assistance to restore their health. It is essential that the Health Institution promotes humanized, safe and correct care in accordance with duly standardized procedures and standards to obtain an effective result. However, we know that this is not the reality we experience. We still have high rates of hospital infections, which leads us to reflect on the basic rules of care necessary for the essential contribution to combating hospital infections. It was between 1818/1865 that the Hungarian doctor Ignes Philip Semmelweis came across a high increase in the rate of puerperal fever, he highlighted and postulated the obligation of hand hygiene with chlorinated solution between care for each patient, he noted the enormous reduction in the rate of maternal mortality. Thus beginning an essential procedure for health care and assistance. Despite the greater focus on the transmission of diseases in hospital environments and in our society in general, the practice of hand hygiene still acts precariously. It was in 1975 that guides and guidelines began to emerge regarding the practice of correct hand hygiene. Techniques were developed and standardized through COREN. These being: simple, antiseptic, surgical and pre-operative hygiene. Hand hygiene was one of the globally effective ways to prevent the spread of the recent Pandemic we have suffered. COVID 19. And much of this spread was due to a lack of information/awareness among the large population, where the practice of this procedure (which must be carried out daily among homes) was not completely understood. Practice is essential for everyday life, and can be replaced by the use of alcohol gel in the absence of water and soap (as long as there is no dirt on the hands. In a hospital environment, hand hygiene procedures are defined for each care procedure, depending on the The nursing team continuously observes them, making the team aware that correct hygiene ensures the health of professionals, patients and the Hospital Environment, reducing contagion. (promoted in the institution occupies a bed, he is administered medicines that could treat another patient). And mainly and not death. Basic, cheap and effective practice as long as it is correctly carried out. In this way, it is highlighted that Continuous Education campaigns for Awareness of the entire population is required to discuss the topic “hand hygiene”, not only as a rule and mandatory in the Hospital Environment, essential to promote health in the units. But also in society in general.

Working 40 years as medical doctors.

The health status of health professionals, including medical doctors is an important topic, although it is an under-researched area in Hungary and in the East-Central European countries as well. Our quasi-cohort research was focused on the health status, morbidities, anthropometric parameters, lifestyle and professional career of Hungarian medical doctors who graduated in 1979, following them 25y, 30y and 40y after graduation, seeking differences between professional groups and genders. In 2019, the mean age of participants was 64.9y, the average number of children was 2.08, higher among surgical professionals (2.43). Men reported higher number of own children. The number of night shifts decreased during the past decades. Most of them is already retired, 70% is working besides receiving a pension. 27% changed their medical specialty, 36% intended to work in another field of medicine, when graduated. About 10% of them achieved scientific (PhD) degree, most of them were satisfied with own professional carrier. The body weight and BMI significantly increased during decades, without statistical difference between genders and professional groups. Diabetes was self reported in 7%, hypertension in 44%. Men neglected more frequently their regular health check-up. Compared to their patients at the same age, 71% rated their own health status better. Among those, who reported regular physical activities, the ratio of men was higher; the average time spent on sport was the same as in the past decades, although the ratio of persons who had regular physical activity decreased, fewer participated in team sport activities. Their sleeping habit is quiet, the time is 6.3 h between workdays and 7.7 h on weekends. Burn-out was not reported. The ratio of smokers decreased; the self-reported daily intake of alcoholic beverages was 1.3, the weekly 3.7 units. Differences described earlier between professional groups disappeared. The problems of the recent Hungarian health care system were similarly rated, although the income of Hungarian physicians has increased to a great extent in the past years. Orv Hetil. 2023; 164(29): 1127-1133.

THEODOR POSEWITZ AND HIS BORNEO (1889) – THE FIRST GEOLOGICAL MONOGRAPH OF THE ISLAND

ABSTRACT Theodor Posewitz (1850–1917), a Hungarian medical doctor and geologist, spent five years in the Dutch East Indies between 1880 and 1885, serving the colonial Dutch army. He spent time on Java, Borneo, Bangka and Billiton islands. He dedicated his spare time to geological exploration. About eighty of his geological studies appeared in geological and geographical journals. His chief work, the first monograph on the geology of Borneo, including geological and mineral resources maps, was published in German in 1889 and in English in 1892. Early years of his studies and the results of his five-year stay in Asia are discussed, based on archival records. The background for the book, Borneo, and its significance for contemporary and modern science is outlined.

Aftermath of ban on Hungarian medical doctors' informal payment

Since 2020, Hungary's penalty law has banned any undue advantage or its promise for medical services. Parallel, the Health Care Act in force was changed concerning the legally acceptable allowances for medical care. Hungary's medical community and the patients received these changes as ending of the perverse informal payment system parasitizing the public financing. Informal payment disappeared indeed, but it will be hard to get rid of its ruins left behind. For creating transparency, first the health care workers' and general practitioners' quasi informal payment and finally the specialists' so-called parallel net-income (paid by patients' para-solvency) - which was an illegal fee for pretended private practice in the public health care - must be cleared. This pretence was eradicated by clear separation of private and public services. The key issue of any further changes is rearranging the in- and outpatient secondary care run either/or as integrated, separated or partially mixed systems. Determined by ownership, financial and professional environment, the only model will survive in the new era which is based on economic sector neutrality, complies well with the aims of health policy and interests of medical doctors and their patients. Orv Hetil. 2023; 164(14): 523-532.

Banjarmasin: public health and social structure in 1877, as described by a Hungarian medical doctor and geologist

Theodor Posewitz, a Hungarian medical doctor and geologist (1850–1917) spent five years in the Dutch East Indies between 1880 and 1885, serving the colonial Dutch army. During his service assignments he spent all his free time with geological exploration, ultimately yielding the first geological map and monograph of Borneo. Being a citizen of Hungary, a country without any colonial aspirations, he was able to observe, investigate both nature and people of the region without relying to conventional prejudices of colonial officers. His description of Banjarmasin – published originally in Hungarian – is a prime example of objective, impartial, scientific description of land and people; a valuable source to the geography, public health and social structure of the town back in 1887. A list of scientific publications of Posewitz on the East Indies is added in the Appendix.

„My sword is science, my shield is work.” : Messages of the legacy of Vilma Hugonnai, the first Hungarian female physician in 2022

The Hungarian National Commission for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has proposed the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Vilma Hugonnai, the first Hungarian female physician, in 2021, in a joint commemoration with UNESCO. After the positive decision of the General Assembly in November 2021, the Pre- sident of the Hungarian National Commission for UNESCO proposed to the Union of Hungarian Women the coordination of a joint commemoration of the “100th Anniversary of the Death of Vil- ma Hugonnai (1847-1922), the first Hungarian doctor”. With this commemoration, Vilma Hugon- nai’s work as a healer for families, her intellectual achievements, her enduring spiritual strength, her courage, her innovative and proactive approach and her spirit of sustaining women’s role in society as a value are to be presented as examples for present and future generations. The event is co-organised by the Hungarian Association of Midwives, the Semmelweis Museum and Archives of Medical History and the Professional Association of Hungarian Health Visitors. “She did not have an easy life, she had plenty of work besides her professional duties, she was a child minder, an advocate for children and women, and furthermore, she managed to publish a book. She translated the Anna Fischer-Dückelmann’s book from German, a family medicine book for women, and wrote the foreword to it – a copy of which I keep in the family heritage”, said András Lászlóné Radványi, great-niece of Vilma Hugonnai, at the inauguration ceremony of the Vilma Hugonnai Square in 2020 in Józsefváros (the square next to the External Clinical Block of Semmelweis University, is named after the first Hungarian female doctor). In this article, the life of Vilma Hugonnai will be analysed based on interviews with organisers, the objective being the exploration of the message and example of Doctor Hugonnai to the organisers 100 years later.

Daughter of Saul, or Saul Leanya: The Gendered Place of Atrocity in László Nemes's Son of Saul

Abstract László Nemes's 2015 production, Son of Saul (Saul fia), is one of the most critically acclaimed Holocaust movies to date. The film disrupts canonical notions of visual representation of the special squads of Jewish inmates, or Sonderkommando, forced to work in the crematoria. Simultaneously, it radically re-genders an exceptional survival scene recorded as autobiographical truth by witness testimony. A young Hungarian girl's survival of a Zyklon B gassing became exceptional among other incidents of survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau due to the medical assistance offered and the resuscitation administered by the Hungarian medical doctor of the crematoria, Miklos Nyiszli. Son of Saul effectively swaps the body of this teenage girl with the body of a boy in order to re-create a foundational patrilineal story of powerful ideological impact and legitimating force. Pursuing a project of reestablishing a hegemonic male discourse over the Holocaust, the film also portrays a female inmate as one of the four women who made the 7 October 1944 Sonderkommando revolt in Auschwitz-Birkenau possible by smuggling in the explosives for the insurgents. Ella's disconcerting neediness in the film seems uniquely misplaced onto a woman tortured by the Gestapo and hanged without having betrayed her accomplices. While Son of Saul offers its own remarkably successful solutions and modes of cinematic transcendence portraying the ultimate sites of extermination, it does not convey an adequate understanding of gender relations transformed by the historical context of the Final Solution and the vital role of women in the Jewish resistance to the Nazi-orchestrated genocide.

Vojnový Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Belehrad 1915–1916. Ratni Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Beograd 1915–1916

Vojnový Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Belehrad 1915–1916. Ratni Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Beograd 1915–1916

Development of the city hospital in Novi Sad - Part I

Introduction. In 1907, the City Council of Novi Sad authorized the building of a new city hospital. The complex of hospital buildings was planned as a modern pavilion-style hospital with a 300 bed capacity. Foundation. The Pavilion 1 was intended for Admitting Department, Management and Administrative Departments. The facade of this building was decorated with a monumental mosaic of two angels. The Pavilion 2 was built for Departments of Surgery and Gynecology, whereas the Pavilion 3 included departments for patients with internal diseases, patients with skin and venereal diseases and maternity ward, but occasionally some infectious and neurological patients were treated there as well. In 1912, two new buildings were built: the first was the Antitrachoma Department and the other for patients with tuberculosis. During the First World War, the City Hospital was turned into a military hospital for the wounded, and also for those suffering from abdominal and typhoid fever, as well as from Spanish fever. Period between the two world wars. Since 1921, the founder of the hospital and its name have changed, and it has become the General State Hospital. After young physicians, educated at famous European medical centers, were employed, the Novi Sad State Hospital experienced a great advancement, especially in the field of surgery. In 1922, a new building was built, where the Bacteriological Station and the Pasteur Institute were established. The problems that the City Hospital was facing transferred to the General State Hospital, and were mostly financial. Before the Second World War, the State Hospital had a 455 bed capacity. After the Hungarian armed forces occupied Novi Sad in May 1941, the hospital director and all the ward physicians were replaced by Hungarian military doctors who worked there until September 1944.

Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War with an Epidemic by Dóra Vargha

Reviewed by: Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War with an Epidemic by Dóra Vargha Donna Harsch Dóra Vargha. Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War with an Epidemic. Global Health Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. xii + 260 pp. Ill. $105.00 (978-1-108-42084-6). Dóra Vargha's well-documented and clearly argued monograph is a welcome addition to the historiography on polio outside the United States and, more generally, to the history of medicine and public health in Socialist Eastern Europe. The book draws on primary sources from thirteen archives and libraries, including Hungarian repositories, an Albert B. Sabin collection, World Health Organization records, and International Committee of the Red Cross documents. It incorporates eyewitness accounts from fifteen people interviewed by Vargha. It offers a very interesting analysis of the intense coverage of polio by the Hungarian press. Last but not least, it weaves in information and arguments from a multitude of secondary studies. From this material, Vargha reconstructs a many-sided story that covers the epidemiological, cultural, and political history of polio in Hungary after the Second World War, while also situating Hungarian events and discourse within a wider medical context of international and cooperative efforts to develop a cure, on the one hand, and within the global political framework of Cold War ideological hostility and all-round rivalry, on the other. [End Page 633] The history of the fight against polio in Hungary, Vargha demonstrates, actually challenges the view that Cold War antagonisms were ubiquitous and constant in the 1950s and 1960s. The search for a cure and the testing of vaccines, she argues convincingly, were characterized by transnational medical collaborations that crossed the Cold War divide. Polio researchers and public health officials from all over the world, not only the United States and Western Europe, shared medical data and information, presented research at international congresses, and participated in major vaccine trials. Interest in polio peaked at the same time around the world because in the 1950s so many countries experienced frequent and severe polio epidemics. Socialist health officials in Hungary (and the Soviet Union) were eager to learn from and work with research teams from the West in carrying out the decisive trials of the Sabin vaccine, while Western hospitals and medical personnel were happy to help supply equipment and vaccine to Hungary (and other Eastern European states). Transnational exchange and cooperation were actively promoted by the World Health Organization—which, she argues, gained respect and, gradually, participation from East Bloc countries in the 1960s. The book traces the course of multiple polio epidemics in Hungary from the late 1940s through 1961. It discusses the varieties, technology, accessibility, venues, medical personnel, and patients' experience of polio treatment. It tracks the opening and extension of treatment centers and examines the ways in which Hungarian public health officials, doctors, and nurses worked to overcome and/ or circumvent shortages of, most significantly, iron lungs. Beyond the facts of polio, Vargha evaluates change and continuity in public discourse and private opinion about polio in Hungary. She considers why polio elicited considerably more official and popular fear than infectious diseases that were more common and deadlier than polio. As have other scholars, she points, above all, to the dominant demographic of its victims, children, and to the relatively high incidence of paralysis and, from that, long-term disabilities among them. Polio's perverse association with children's beloved summer recreational activities, she suggests, also contributed to the broad and deep anxieties that polio epidemics sparked. Polio's disproportionate impact on innocent children, she argues, is another reason that researchers and, more importantly, governments were willingly to breach the Iron Curtain when solving this international problem. The cooperative and successful effort against polio both represented and encouraged rising global concern about children's welfare. Inside Hungary too, the book shows, anxiety about polio's threat to children crossed domestic political divides and tempered the Communist regime's ideological rigidity. Initially, the repression that followed the crushing of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 hurt the efforts of doctors to diagnose and of hospitals to treat polio patients. When a polio epidemic broke out...

The role of controllable lifestyle in the choice of specialisation among Hungarian medical doctors

BackgroundHungary has been serious facing human resources crisis in health care, as a result of a massive emigration of health workers. The resulting shortage is unevenly distributed among medical specialisations. The findings of research studies are consistent in that the most important motivating factor of the choice of the medical career and of medical specialisations is professional interest. Beyond this, it is important to examine other reasons of why students do or do not choose certain specialisations. The lifestyle determined by the chosen speciality is one such factor described in the literature.MethodsUsing convenient sampling, first year resident medical doctors from each of the four Hungarian universities with a medical faculty were asked to participate in the study in 2008. In total 391 first year resident medical doctors completed the self-administered questionnaire indicating a 57.3% response rate. On the basis of the work of Schwartz et al. (Acad Med 65(3):207–210, 1990), the specialisation fields were divided into the two main categories of non-controllable (NCL) or controllable lifestyles (CL). We carried out a factor analysis on motivating factors and set up an explanatory model regarding the choice of CL and NCL specialisations.ResultsTwo maximum likelihood factors were extracted from the motivational questions: “lifestyle and income” and “professional interest and consciousness”. The explanatory model on specialisation choice shows that the “professional interest and consciousness” factor increases the likelihood of choosing NCL specialisations. In contrast the “lifestyle and income” factor has no significant impact on the choice of CL/NCL specialisations in the model.ConclusionsOur results confirm the important role of professional interest in the choice of medical specializations in Hungary. On the other hand, it seems surprising that we found no significant difference in the “lifestyle and income” related motivation among those medical residents, who opted for CL as opposed to those, who opted for NCL specialisations. This does not necessarily mean that lifestyle is not an important motivating factor, but that it is equally important for both groups of medical residents.

Why would doctors from Debrecen go abroad? Results of a questionnaire

Numerous beliefs have arisen in relation to the emigration of doctors. First of all, in most cases emigration has been attributed to, almost exclusively, low salaries. There are a number of non-financial issues that could possibly be more easily addressed. In order to get closer to these issues, we sent out a 37-item questionnaire to doctors, who originally graduated from the University of Debrecen. Altogether 82 of them sent back the questionnaire. The mean age at the time of emigration was 32 years. The most popular destination was the United States, however, many colleagues left for the US to do research, as well as clinical practice. Among the European countries, the most popular ones were Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway. The five most popular clinical specialties were general practice, internal medicine, anesthesiology/intensive care, laboratory/pathology and surgery. With respect to the planned duration of working abroad, at the time of emigration one-fourth of our colleagues planned very short (<2 years) stay. When we asked them now, 38% plans much longer, even indefinite stay. The most common reasons of emigration were also assessed. The most common one was the lack of career track, followed by low salary, quality of life, family issues and adventurousness. Interestingly, burnout and "gratuities" were at the end of the list. A mean 1.3 million HUF per month would make our colleagues satisfied but they think that a mean 486.000 HUF would be realistic and would keep most doctors within the country. As far as university education is concerned, our colleagues agreed that the basic medical knowledge of Hungarian doctors is excellent, but their practical skills are much worse. Although returning to Hungary would be unrealistic by most colleagues, low salaries are definitely not the most important or exclusive reason for leaving the country. These issues are rather complex, there are numerous non-financial issues, which could be addressed much easier by expressing a positive attitude. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(37): 1458-1468.

To the memory of Andrew E. Czeizel

The article is devoted to the outstanding Hungarian doctor - Andrew Czeizel, his biography and achievements in the Enforcement Network for the improvement of the Health of Children - the future of humanity.

„Nálunk (...) minden ötödik órában elhagyja az országot egy orvos”

A globalizáció következtében a magasan képzettek nemzetközi vándorlása – a munkaerőhiány miatt – egyre növekvő fontosságra tesz szert a kormányzati és nemzetközi migrációs és munkaerő-piaci politikákban. Az egészségügyi dolgozók migrációja különös figyelmet kap, mivel hiányuk kihat a lakosság egészségi állapotára, közvetve pedig befolyásolja annak gazdasági teljesítőképességét. Intézményi szinten megjelent a szakember- menedzselés tervezésének igénye, viszont megvalósítását az adathiány ellehetetleníti. Az EU különböző kutatási projektek révén törekszik a migráció nagyságának felbecsülésére az egyes tagországokban. Ehhez kíván, jóllehet nagyon szerény mértékben, hozzájárulni a jelen kutatás. Erdélyi magyar orvos-, gyógyszerész- és végzős nővérképzős hallgatók körében vizsgáltam a migrációs potenciált, azaz a külföldi munkavállalás tervezésében szerepet játszó taszító és vonzó tényezőket, a kedvelt célországokat és a migráns kapcsolatok hatását.A tanulmány az elméleti és módszertani háttér ismertetése után a migrációs potenciált befolyásoló tényezők szerepét három részben elemzi: a szociodemográfiai tényezők, a kulturális (idegennyelv-ismeret) és a társadalmi (migráns kapcsolatok) tőke, valamint a pszichikai tényezők (attitűdök) mentén. Röviden megvizsgálja a tisztított migrációs potenciált, illetve bemutatja a vándorlás ellenében ható faktorokat és a maradás feltételeit.A végzős hallgatók nyers migrációs potenciálja magasnak mondható az erdélyi magyar felnőtt népességhez képest, de megegyezik az erdélyi magyar fiatalok külföldi munkavállalási szándékával (60%). A szociodemográfiai tényezők kevésbé befolyásolják a migrációs terveket, lévén, hogy sok szempontból szelektált, viszonylag homogén népességről van szó. A migráció tervezését leginkább a migráns hálózatok, főként a migráns baráti kapcsolatok segítik elő, továbbá a pesszimista jövőkép és az élettel való elégedetlenség. A család és a szülőföld szeretete a legerősebb helyben tartó tényezők.

Let's talk about 'One fungus One name'. Changes in the fungal taxonomy

Mycologists have recorded a few hundred thousand Latin names for fungi and these are thought to refer to 70 000 or so separate species. The use of molecular techniques in fungal taxonomy and systematics in the last 25 years has provided massive amounts of information to clarify phylogenetic relationships, encouraged grant support, and complicated the jobs of classically-trained mycologists. Taxonomists have a reputation for being traditionalists, but the community has recently embraced the modernization of the nomenclatural rules by discarding the requirement for Latin descriptions, endorsing electronic publication, and ending the dual system of nomenclature, viz. teleomorph and anamorph names, which used parallel for the sexual and asexual phases of pleomorphic species. A group of taxonomists accepted ’The Amsterdam Declaration on Fungal Nomenclature’ and its basic principle the ’One fungus – one name’ has been incorporated in the Code of Nomenclature (’Melbourne Code’) in 2011. The next, and more difficult step will be to develop community standards for sequence-based classification. As the’One fungus – One name’ theory is a brand-new issue for the Hungarian plant doctors and practical specialists, it seems reasonable to review this to promote conversations between generations in Hungarian language.

A magyar orvosok és természetvizsgálók 1844-ben Kolozsváron tartott, ötödik vándorgyűléséről

A magyar orvosok és természetvizsgálók 1844-ben Kolozsváron tartott, ötödik vándorgyűléséről

Robert Heinrich Herman Koch

Robert Heinrich Herman Koch

Association of the Scientific Societies of Hungarian Medical Doctors (MORTESZ) was founded 80 years ago

After the First World War the professional medical societies in Hungary, which have already organized themselves nationwide, started to operate independently from each other. In that time came the idea to create another association above the others to gather them together while retaining their independent functioning. The Association of the Scientific Societies of Hungarian Medical Doctors (MORTESZ), established in 1931, became the nationwide forum for many medical associations. It also organized the first Hungarian Medical Grand-Week which became the annual meeting of the medical society. In the first year the cooperation only consisted of a common topic of two or three associations presented in the "Grand-Week". From year 1935, reports were appointed annually that each professional association could comment on. The proceedings of the "Grand-Week" were published yearly as appendices of the Hungarian Medical Journal. After the Second World War the activities of the independent associations were shut down by the authorities. The scientific and professional associations could continue their work as sections inside of the Doctors and Health Workers' Union. In 1966 the situation was solved thanks to the initiative of the Trade Union, the Department of Medicine and the Medical Section of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences which resulted in the foundation of the Association of the Hungarian Medical Societies (MOTESZ) which continues to gather together the collective work of many scientific associations and carries out tasks of general interest since then, similarly to the now 80-years-old MORTESZ.

Difficulties in the prevention of cervical cancer: Adults’ attitudes towards HPV vaccination 3 years after introducing the vaccine in Hungary

Cervical cancer is one of the most prevalent gynaecological malignancies worldwide. The Hungarian incidence and mortality of this disease take the 4th–5th places within the European Union. A survey including 785 male and female adults was conducted to assess the knowledge and attitudes concerning HPV vaccination. We focused on the difficulties of the primary and secondary prevention of cervical cancer and examined some potential sociodemographic predictors of HPV vaccine acceptability.Our findings have identified some important issues like: incomplete knowledge, intense distrust and financial concerns. Almost half of the college students (45.6%) are unaware of HPV infections. We confirmed previous findings that older age and female gender correlates with better knowledge on STDs, including HPV. We found that greater exposure to health information comes with better knowledge and more positive attitudes towards vaccination.One quarter of survey respondents do not believe that cervical cancer may be prevented by vaccination. More than half of the adults do not trust national health care system and the preparedness of Hungarian doctors. General attitudes towards vaccination are broadly positive, 80% of survey participants had expressed desire towards HPV vaccination, however if there was a need to pay for the vaccination the willingness would decrease by half.Primary prevention through HPV-focused educational programs, clear communication and financial support would be important for public health to reduce the high incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in Hungary in the future.

Less known Hungarian doctors of Tolstoy: Vilmos Vragassy (1855–1935) and Albert Škarvan (1869–1926)

Less known Hungarian doctors of Tolstoy: Vilmos Vragassy (1855–1935) and Albert Škarvan (1869–1926)