Background: One of the greatest challenges of the XXI. century is the changing of the medical profession. Beside of the process of deprofessionalism, the demographic and social composition of the medical society have also been altering. More women became medical doctors in recent years. Parallel to these changes, the career motivations of medical students are transforming. Method: 175 first year medical students from the Semmelweis University participated in our study. They wrote about their career motivations based on a fixed set of viewpoints. The narratives were analysed by both quantitative and qualitative (content analysis) methods. Results: The female students are committed to medical profession at younger ages. The most important factors in career choices are altruism and scientific interest for both genders. There is a male dominance in career motivations of experiences, knowledge and benefits. Conclusions: The changing face of career motivations has a significant impact on both the physicians and the patients. This issue opens up possibilities for following research.

Introduction: Obtaining health information is an important part of health behaviour. However, there is limited data available about information gathering habits of patients. Aims: To identify different patient groups according to their information gathering habits.
Methods: Questionnaire survey among potential patients in an outpatient clinic in Budapest. The survey consisted of the following domains: sociodemographic data; habits of visit a doctor; communications method with a specialist; use of technical devices.
Results: The survey was completed by 260 patients (36,2% men; 63,8% women). Patients primarily get medical information from their doctors, followed by the internet, where different websites and Facebook groups are the most common sources of information. Mostly they use the internet for checking their symptoms and complaints, however searching for data about their physicians and healthcare institutions are uncommon. Patients who are young, active workers, highly educated are more active, while elderly patients and widows search less information on the internet. Conclusions: There are socio-demographic groups who are underinformed by digital healthcare related issues. Audited websites and social media releases could play an important role in
the information gathering process of patients, and also supplement patient-doctor relationship.

With the headway of globalization and knowledge-based economy, international student mobility is promoted as the main indicator of the internationalization of higher education. In Hungary the number of foreign students – similarly to global trends – shows an increase, representing a significant economic interest. Besides this, the international students make a growing impact
on the development and the economic and cultural life of the cities where the universities are based. In our empirical research, we analyzed international students at the Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy foreign language programs of the University of Debrecen and the University of Pécs with the help of personally requested anonymous, self-completed questionnaires (n=602). The
self-developed questionnaire focused on three issues: the motivation of the students, their satisfaction with the university and the process of their integration. The research was conducted in the spring semester of the academic year 2015/2016 at both universities.
Based on the results it can be stated that from the perspective of medium- and long-term policy development of the university and the city, it is indispensable to survey the motivations and satisfaction of the students arriving to Hungary due to international student mobility as well as to facilitate their integration. The general medicine major of the University of Pécs and
that of the University of Debrecen are very popular among foreign students but there are significant differences in their choices behind which we can discover the different cultural background of the matriculated students and this factor determines their personal choices and their later plans. Concerning the difficulties at the beginning we can state based on the results that for the
students of the German programme the different language medium and the local bureaucracy mean a bigger challenge, while for the heterogeneous community of the English programme contact building with the tutors and the integration into the socio-cultural medium mean more difficulties. Concerning the integration we can state that from the point of country of origin the integration means a little less challenge for the more homogenies student community of the German programme than for the heterogeneous community of the English programme behind which most probably the stabilization of the acculturation process can be trailed.

Introduction: The goals of the subject of Medical sociology are to familiarize and explain the relationships between social environment and health. The theoretical and practical elements of the medical sociology education and the field studies that form a part of practical work serve these goals. During filed studies, we build on the previous knowledge and experience of the
students. Method: The themes of the field studies change from semester to semester. From the series of studies we picked three themes that were connected to and built on each other. We present the role of field studies through their description and the explanation of our experiences. Results: Field studies add empirical skills and experience to the knowledge acquired during the
theoretical and practical training of medical sociology. The field study assignments also serve to strengthen the effects of the “hidden curriculum”, the process of the indirect professional socialization at the medical school. Furthermore, the new knowledge and skills give the students a better understanding of the scientific literature helping them in the interpretation of statistical
and methodological aspects of biomedical results and concepts. Conclusion: Our experiences show that field studies are an efficient teaching method. Its most important outcome is sensitizing medical students towards health related social problems and helping them to understand and handle such problems.

The general aim of medical education is the same as in the case of any other ones: creating a professional person from a lay one. A special characteristic of this education is a deep rift between the lay and the professional perspective. One of the main trends of this trait is the discrepancy between the open and the hidden curricula. The contents of the hidden curricula, in many cases, cannot support the main messages of the formal one, on the contrary, they provide a different or even contradictory set of norms, values,
attitudes. One of the main consequences of these discrepancies is that some medical students have been becoming more cynical since their entrance into medical education. The open curricula emphasize empathy, alleviating pain and suffering, the importance of trust and fidelity, and that the well-being of patients is one of the most important priorities. The hidden curricula at the same time emphasize objectivity, detachment, caution, and being suspicious against emotions. One of the outcomes of these eventually contradictory tendencies is that the ’wounded healer’ is not a precondition for becoming a healer, like in archaic times, but a by-product of medical education. 

Introduction: The present study examines the information on the medical profession and how the changes occurring in the medical practice, the social role and the evaluation of the physician are reflected in the English and Hungarian language medical sociology textbooks used in Hungary. Method: We analyzed chapters of Hungarian language medical sociology textbooks of the
last 25 years that discuss medical profession and student choices, and textbooks used in English language courses of Semmelweis University. Results: The corpus of the Hungarian textbooks (history of medical profession, medical role models, models of doctor-patient relationships, medical socialization) stayed relatively unchanged. While preserving the myth of the medical profession, there are criticisms towards the role and relationship models. The theme of the medical education gradually disappears from the
English language textbooks. The social positions of the medical profession and health care are discussed in a broader context, focusing on the health care system and health care provision, incorporating the allied professions, and taking aspects of patients/consumers into greater consideration. Summary: Both textbook types reflect on the changes in the social position of the medical profession. However, the English literature approaches the modernization processes from the angles of the health care system and health care provision, resulting in the diminishing importance of the topic of medical profession while the Hungarian literature focuses on the profession and professional education of physicians.

The first part of this work is an attempt to reconstruct the context of theory of science in relation
to which Engel works out his biopsychosocial model. Then, an explanation of the biopsychosocial
model is given. The third part explores the role content that can be derived from the Engelien
model. Finally, some remarks are made, by which the Engelien paradigm is placed – in some
respects – in explanatory context.

The article examines a special, emerging discipline of telemedicine, telemental health, according to a literature review introduce its main areas, the ensured mental health services, the type of technologies used. The history and present of the telemental health, including the online counseling psychological and communication specialities, the professional standards, regulations, and the
guidelines on how to evaluate the effectiveness and spread of telemental health will be discussed. Collecting and analyzing the best practicies, the experiencies can help to improve telemental health services, provide recommendation for futher utilization opportunities.

This study analyses the relationship of low health literacy and non-participation in breast screening. It defines health literacy, discusses its measurement tools, reports on health literacy studies in various populations, describes participation rates in the Hungarian breast screening program, reviews studies dealing with the effect of health literacy on breast screening participation
and makes recommendations for the improvement of health literacy. Health literacy is the ability to gain, understand, and appraise health related information as well as using said information in decision making. There are validated tools for measuring
it. Like in other countries, surveys in Hungary found that the health literacy of the population is rather low. About half of the population has poor or problematic health literacy.

People’s attitudes toward death has changed in the 21st century. The study shows how social-economic changes and development of medicine had an influence on attitudes toward death. After that describes the importance of end of life decisions, ways and legal methods of choosing postmodern (individualized) death, and finally the postmodern funeral and mourning rites.

This paper brings into focus the theme of doctor-sick people/patient relationship by means of boethical principles interpreted in sociocultural perspective. The author, based on German literature, holds that the transformation of docor-sick people relationship [Arzt-Kranke-Verhältnis] into doctor-patient relationship [Arzt-Patient-Verhältnis] is one of the conditions and elements
of modern medicine. Its realization requires disseminate and making general the patient’s principle of autonomy, his right to self determination and his right to informed consent in Hungarian patient care. This civilization challenge – namely the adjustment of the quality of all elements of medicine (including attitudes) to the criteria and standards of modern medicine – is the interest
of all concerned in health care. In this setting interdisciplinary work is being offered by bioethics, for example to the sociology of health.

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