During the first half of the 20th century in Hungary there have been a great number of people suffering from lung tuberculosis. Although effective drugs have not been available until the end of the 1940-s, specific diagnostic and treatment methods became available.
Dr. Ferenc Kováts, originally a family physician, gained an exceptionally large experience in these methods after treating many patients and making extended visits to German and French tuberculosis hospitals in the 1930-s. The Medical School of Pázmány Péter University founded a new chair for teaching medical students on phthysiology in 1942. The first chairman was Dr. Ferenc Kováts, who became internationally known after he published in German a case of extrinsic allergic alveolitis.
The clinic’s former director’s
Prof. Dr. Ferenc Kováts (1942-1961)
Prof. Dr. Gusztáv Miskovits (1961-1988)
Prof. Dr. Imre Hutás (1988-1993)
Prof Dr. Pál Magyar (1994-2007)
Prof. Dr. György Losonczy ( 2007-2018)
Prof. Dr. Veronika Müller (2008-
In the 1980-s emphesis in patient care shifted from tuberculosis to obstructive airway diseases, later to lung cancer. Currently all forms of acute and chronic lung and chest diseases are diagnosed and treated. In addition to patient care teaching of medical students is going in English and German (in addition to Hungarian) language. The Department is the center of pulmonology Ph.D. studies and the faculty has multifold clinical and research connections with European pulmonology centers.
The Department of Pulmonology is a top level (IIIb) pulmonary care institution in Hungary. It has 147 beds, 6 intensive care, 8 sub-intensive (non-invasive respiratory) care beds, 80 active, 20 rehabilitation pulmonology and 40 lung cancer beds. Diagnostic laboratories include bronchology, chest ultrasound, digital X-ray, lung function, echocardiology, ECG, blood gas and acid-base, chemistry and haematology, mycobacteriology and sleep apnoe-hypopnoe diagnostics.
The Department takes care of all forms of respiratory diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, lung tuberculosis, interstitial lung diseases, primary and metastatic cancer of the lung and pleura, all forms of idiopathic and rare lung diseases, acute and chronic respiratory failure. Our Department is the only center in Hungary where patients are selected for lung transplantation and transplanted patients are taken care for long-term.
Medical rehabilitation is developing at the Department. Our Department treats 4000 in-patients and 16 000 out-patients annually. The multispecialty backgound is provided by different university departments of the Semmelweis University Medical Center. Some of these are located close, others on the other side of the Danube.