Endrőczi Elemér: 100 éves a magyar orvostovábbképzés 1883-1983 (Budapest, 1983)
Összefoglalás (angol nyelven)
of the best physicians (Frigyes Korányi, Vilmos Tauff er, János Bókay, Emil Grósz, Károly Schaff er, etc.). The high standard of postgraduate courses received much attention even abroad and during the meeting of the XVI. International Medical Congress held in Budapest in 1909, the Comité International pour l'Enseignement Medical Complémentaire was established to promote postgraduate medical education on international level. During World War I the aim of the training courses was changed and much attention was focussed on field-surgery and epidemiology including prevention and medication. By the end of the war the sanitary conditions were even worse than before and the Hungárián Soviet Republic during its 133 days of existence launched a great number of very important decrees to improve public health and to prevent epidemics (including the nationalization of hospitals and drawing the production of vaccines under state control). Many progressive and communist intellectuals and physicians like József Madzsar were constrained to emigrate. The specialization in mcdicine had its beginning in the first decades of the 19th Century and concomitant with this process great medical schools in different branches of medicine also developed. Their accomplishments were tightly connected with the matter of postgraduate medical teaching and these schools were the driving-forces of development after World War 1 although their political faith was far from the ruling regime. Soon after the declaration of the Peace Treaty of Trianon in 1920, the courses were organized primarily to complement the knowledge of those who graduated during the war. Futile attempts were made to extend postgraduate medical education to physicians living in the seceded territories. The compulsory registration of physicians according to specialities was ordered by the government in 1924. The differentiation in medical sciences and the specialized needs of the state's health were reflected in the topics of the courses. The ruling regime recognized the necessity of an urgent development in public health and several hospitals, university buildings as well as the National Institute of Public Health were built in the 1920s. Even the Committee received more support for the postgraduate training of physicians which led to a new prosperity of the programme. In the laté 1920sapproximately 1000 physicians attended the courses and beside the capital courses were organized in provinciai towns, too. This prosperity lasted for a few years, then the great economic crisis led to a drastic decline in the state support and in the attendance of the courses. The strengthening of extreme rightist policy led to the dissolution of the Committee in 1936 and local Organizers of the universities took over the organization of courses in spite of the fact that university clinics were in a drastic shortage of space even for practical teaching of medical students. Naturaly, the re-organization of postgraduate medical education was a political action to remove the progressively thinking physicians from public and university life. After the liberation of the country in 1945, public health was all in ruins so to say, the main goal was to restore the hospitals, to fight against undernutrition and epidemics. In spite of these extremely difficult conditions, the universities opened the doors and fi ve times as many students were enrolled in the first year as in 1938. By the restoration of public health under the direction of Emil Weil, president of the Trade Union of Physicians and the National Council of Public Health, the organization of postgraduate courses had its 73
