He is an exceptionally active supervisor in the Gastroenterology Group, serving as its group leader as well. Two of his students published high-impact papers in recent months, one of them in the D1 journal Gastroenterology and the other in the D1 journal Gut Microbes. Bálint Erőss was honored with the Excellent Supervisor Award by the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Dr. Erőss has an exceptionally large number of Ph.D. students at CTM, supervising the research work of twelve of them. One is Mahmoud Obeidat, who clarified essential decision-making criteria for the optimal timing of endoscopy in patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding. His research was recently published in the prestigious journal Gastroenterology, ranked #3 among all gastroenterology journals. „Before starting this research, we assessed in an international survey the criteria used by specialists to determine the timing of endoscopic examination in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. After analyzing the survey results, we conducted a study to identify the factors most important in determining the timing of endoscopy in such cases. Previously, this issue had not been investigated or clarified. We concluded that physicians made their decisions solely based on their experience. For this reason, it is a major step forward that we were able to determine how hemodynamic status influences the decision-making on endoscopy timing in gastrointestinal bleeding.”
Dr. Diana-Elena Floria is another Ph.D. student of Dr. Erőss, and her research has just been published in Gut Microbes, a gastroenterology journal ranked #5. In her study, she refuted the belief that proton pump inhibitors may be associated with an increased risk of Clostridioides difficile infection. „It was important to clarify this issue because in the United States, 45% of the population uses such stomach acid reducing medications, and in Hungary, 20-30% of the population takes them regularly or occasionally. There was a belief or myth based on poor-quality evidence that said people who took these drugs were more likely to develop serious intestinal infections. Since some poorly conducted studies indicated this, many physicians also believed it. That is why it had a major impact when we disproved this misconception by reviewing the most credible data from high-quality randomized controlled trials. From now on, no one needs to worry that recommending such medications will increase the risk of serious intestinal infections in their patients.”
Dr. Erőss’s other students are also making good progress with their research. Like Dr. Obediat and Dr. Floria, they also conduct their research independently, participate in group meetings, and, if they have any questions, can contact their supervisor on other occasions as well. As a supervisor, Dr. Erőss finds mentoring young researchers very inspiring, and he enjoys taking on such tasks alongside his clinical work.
(Emese Szabó)