Varga Benedek szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 149-157. (Budapest, 1996)
TANULMÁNYOK / ARTICLES - Huszár György: Balogh Károly professzor (1895—1973) életútja és iskolája. Születésének centenáriumára. Magyar és angol nyelven
pathetic to them, supported their demand. As a result, in 1949, 181 dental technicians were licensed to practice dentistry. (47) At the 1949 annual congress of dentists, Emil Weil, the president of the Health Workers Trade Union, elaborated the position of the Communists on this issue and upheld the action of the Party State which permitted certified dental technicians to provide dental care. (67) In Weil's view this was a problem which the capitalist system would not allow to be solved. The other, less overwhelming reason was the danger that a program to train dentists would be established independent of the university. Realistically, this could have been organized in the Central Dental Institute in Budapest, which had an excellent staff of senior dentists and stood closer to the Party State than the Stomatologic Clinic led by Balogh. Summing up this situation from the distance of four decades, it can be said that in the reform of dental education Balogh saw the chance to diminish the shortage of dentists, to prevent further licensing of dental technicians to practice dentistry and, last but not least, to retain dental education at the university. It was the task of Balogh and his co-workers to prepare and implement the new dental education, which was based on a carefully planned curriculum. As a witness and participant I wrote: "This curriculum was developed by the members of the future faculty, after the study of foreign dental school programs, after many long discussions often late at night. ' ' This curriculum differed from most Western ones in that, beside the dental disciplines, it contained almost all medical school courses, although with a limited scope. This was accomplished mostly at Balogh's instigation. In the Latin language booklet Ratio educationis Clinicae Stomatologicae Universitatis Medicináé Budapestiensis eiusque publications in annis 1945—1955 Balogh published in full detail the curriculum of our new dental education program. The older and emeritus members of our faculty consider this first curriculum better than its later modifications. In 1980 I wrote: "It is noteworthy that the numerous modifications of the first curriculum were not initiated by the faculty of the Dental School. " Balogh tried, unfortunately not always successfully, to prevent the unscientific, illogical amalgamation and cancelling of courses which was initiated by the vice-president of the University and the Ministry of Health at the time. The foundation of an education is a program to be implemented by its teachers. In the case of the Stomatologic Clinic, these teachers often had long subspeciality experience. The lecturers of the dental courses were the professors and associate professors. Before the reform, the staff of the clinic trained only medical doctors who then became dentists. After the reform, graduate students were taught from the beginning to become dentists, which necessitated a different intellectual as well as pedagogical approach. Balogh purposefully directed his staff toward changed teaching conditions; for instance, he invited Gusztáv Bárczy (1890—1964), a prominent therapeutic pedagogue and physician, to acquaint the future teaching staff of the clinic with the basics and practice of modern teaching methods in a series of lectures. It was not easy to start the dental education system in 1951, because, among other difficulties, the objective conditions did not exist for it. The size and number of the rooms of the Clinic were not adequate. Balogh had actually to lay the foundations of a dental school . The expression "founder of a school" is usually abstract, referring to a leading personality who — by passing on his teaching, principles and methods to his students — promotes a science. In this case, Balogh had to organize and literally create a school (departments,
