Department of Social Sciences

Introduction

Phone +36 1 486 4910
Email etk.tarstud@semmelweis.hu
Head of Department Professor Helga Judit Feith, Ph.D.

Background The Department of Social Sciences belongs to the Institute of Basic Health Sciences. It also contains a specialised unit, the Division of Foreign Languages and Communication. The role of the Department is to support all students in preparing for their health care professions as embedded in contemporary societies. Our Department offers dominantly practice oriented knowledge – discussing general and special health care related problems – in the fields of Sociology, Medical Anthropology, History of Health Sciences, Law, Ethics, as well as Medical Economy and Management. These modules – as essentials in health care labour market – are to improve conscious employee competencies. Our Department actively participates in an extended Europe-wide network, COHEHRE by delegating one of the council members for its management. The members of the Department of Social Sciences occupy leading positions in several professional and social organizations and take part in their work (Hungarian Association of Medical History, Public Body of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungarian Sociological Association, The European Association for the History of Medicine and Health (EAHMH), Hungarian Association of Sport Studies). Furthermore, our colleagues have a hand in the edition of different scientific journals, such as Develoments in Health Sciences, Development and Financing, Central European Studies, Kaleidoscope – Journal of History of Culture, Science and Medicine.

Education The Department takes part in the educational development of all B.Sc. and M.Sc. programmes of the Faculty and in the elaboration of curricular directives. As a participant of full-time and part-time trainings in Nursing and Patient Care, Health Care and Disease Prevention and Medical Laboratorial Diagnostic Imaging programmes, the Department is responsible for teaching the following subjects:

Health and Society
Introduction to Health Care Economics
Health Care Management
Bioethics, Professional Ethics, Healthcare Law
Philosophy of Health, Thesis Methodology

Additionally, the Department has been organising the Health Care Project Manager postgraduate course (in Hungarian) since 2008, which enables graduates of the course to successfully (project) manage tasks and situations in every area of the health system. Since September 2014, the Department has been the coordinator of the Health Care Management B.Sc. in Hungarian language (with Health Tourism Management speciality).

One of the main concerns of the Department is to provide adequate knowledge in the most suitable ways, therefore we devote special attention to the importance of the methodology we use in teaching. We have organized five ‘Professional Day on Teaching Methodologies’ events so far. Most of our staff have experience teaching abroad, which has broadened our perspectives and made us more conscious about the approaches we apply. Many of us have participated in ERASMUS intensive programs in numerous foreign universities as teachers, tutors and we coordinated an Intensive Programme titled: Interdisciplinary Training on Social Inclusion in three different countries in three consecutive years.

Research Main research areas of the Department include:

labour migrants in the health care sector;
health and social care of migrants and minorities in Europe;
comparative analysis of archive sources, legal sources on health care of the 18-19th centuries;
epistemology of interpretative anthropology;
minority education and its effects on cultural connectedness;
comparative analysis of dentistry business income producing capability;
typology of ancient votive uterus-representations;
analysis of the archival sources related to the birth-control and the midwife training;
ethical and legal dilemmas in the practice of perinatal intensive care, from the point of view of the beginning and the end of life;
the socioeconomic status of nurses and its sociocultural context.

The Department has delegated the management committee members from Hungary for two COST Actions: HOME (Health and Social Care of Migrants and Minorities in Europe) and ADAPT (Adapting European Health Systems to Diversity). In this latter one we collaborated with the IOM (International Organization for Migration) in expanding the well-known MIPEX (Migrant Integration Policy Index) to the field of health. Our Department proudly hosted three international professional workshops on Roma health issues and four national professional days on patients’ rights and health tourism as well in the last 5 years.