Thread: Could you guys help me to choose?

Hi everyone,
I´m an european student and I´ve applied for 3 faculties of medicine in hungary: Szeged, Semmelweis and Pecs and I´ve been admitted in all. Which one would you recommend me? I would like if someone who is already studying medicine in hungary to give some advices. It would be extremely helpfull, really

Originally Posted by HillenitaPT

Hi everyone,
I´m an european student and I´ve applied for 3 faculties of medicine in hungary: Szeged, Semmelweis and Pecs and I´ve been admitted in all. Which one would you recommend me? I would like if someone who is already studying medicine in hungary to give some advices. It would be extremely helpfull, really

Hey, instead of answering your message, since you wrote your question here as well, I thought I'd answer here so other people can benefit.

I would say go for Semmelweis, it's in the city, you have good possibilities for hospital practice during summer, since it does have a lot of affiliated schools/hospitals. I wanted to do my summer practice in Karolinska institutet, which only has summer practice for students from affiliated schools, so if it wasn't because of connections I would've lost this opportunity since Debrecen and the rest of the Hungarian medical schools except for Semmelweis don't have that great connections with the world outside. I could just be talking rubbish though, I'm not sure how the situation is for countries that are not Sweden.

Also, you get to live in the big city and you will be able to avoid having to travel by train every time you're going out of the country or coming back, I hate doing this trip. So I would say take Semmelweis, hands down.

Uhm I'm not sure about this one but I've heard that eighter Szeged or Pecs are just money makers (can't remember which one), so they fail a loooot of students, I think it's the one with the "pbl" which I've no idea which one it is.

If you've any other question I'll try to answer as soon as I can!

Where are you from by the way?

First of all, thank you so much for your quick reply.

I´m from Portugal (the country right next to Spain).

If you dont mind I would like to ask you what university in hungary are you attending? Are you satisfied with the university in general?

Originally Posted by Dulgar

Hey, instead of answering your message, since you wrote your question here as well, I thought I'd answer here so other people can benefit.

I would say go for Semmelweis, it's in the city, you have good possibilities for hospital practice during summer, since it does have a lot of affiliated schools/hospitals. I wanted to do my summer practice in Karolinska institutet, which only has summer practice for students from affiliated schools, so if it wasn't because of connections I would've lost this opportunity since Debrecen and the rest of the Hungarian medical schools except for Semmelweis don't have that great connections with the world outside. I could just be talking rubbish though, I'm not sure how the situation is for countries that are not Sweden.

Also, you get to live in the big city and you will be able to avoid having to travel by train every time you're going out of the country or coming back, I hate doing this trip. So I would say take Semmelweis, hands down.

Uhm I'm not sure about this one but I've heard that eighter Szeged or Pecs are just money makers (can't remember which one), so they fail a loooot of students, I think it's the one with the "pbl" which I've no idea which one it is.

If you've any other question I'll try to answer as soon as I can!

Where are you from by the way?

Originally Posted by HillenitaPT

First of all, thank you so much for your quick reply.

I´m from Portugal (the country right next to Spain).

If you dont mind I would like to ask you what university in hungary are you attending? Are you satisfied with the university in general?

I'm attending Debrecen Medical school.

I'm not very happy with it, it could be better in so many ways, mostly what you're going to do (or at least what I do) is going to be paying to private tutoring, finding past papers to study from, going through notes from elder students, skipping lectures and sleeping during seminars. I bought every book for first year and I ended up only having to open the anatomy book, everything else I just had to study from notes, because they don't really guide you very well here for you to know "ok these pages I have to study, this is important, blablabla". I'm not sure if it's the same in the other universities.

Oh, and befriend the Jewish community, they have everything you need to have in this country (past papers, notes) if they have the same power as in Debrecen.

May I ask where are you from?

Hi ,
If you guys don't mind, I'd like to chip into your interesting conversation. HillenitaPT, any HU medical school you choose to study will do.I believe they share the same problems since they are run by the same people with the same orientation and mentality. Like Dulgar rightly pointed out, the city should also play a very important role in your choice. In fact, it should be the most important determining factor in your choice since the 4 schools have the same curricula. And as regards this, Semmelweis is the best choice hands down! (See reasons as given by Dulgar above).
Dulgar, I totally agree with you. DOTE owes us a lot! Worst is that just when you thought the pre-clinicals are not so organised, you'll realise the clinical years are beyond horrible. A few changes are slowly going on now, though. Hopefully, by the time you're in 4th year, things may have improved. For the self-study part, I'd recommend not ignoring your textbooks altogether in favour of students' notes. Granted, Avi makes one of the most concise notes out there. But if you study your textbooks (using the topic lists as a guide), you'd realise you can also do the good job he does. My method is to stick w/ my textbooks and lecture slides at the beginning of the semester and later (maybe starting from week 11) use Avi's as exams approaches. I'm not the type that makes notes from textbooks (waste of my time, I dare say) but reading textbooks sure pays off at the end of the day. You'd see this as you get to the clinical years! If you've been reading textbooks (and of course you'd remember only a fraction of them, so don't sweat yourself) your clinical experience would be more interesting. You'd get some tiny useful hints that Avi's ignores in his summarised yet concise notes. Also, the teachers (esp. the old professors) would be more enthusiastic and respectful if they realised that you have a wealth of knowledge.
Unfortunately (or fotunately, depends on how you see it) I'm not European, and thus I have to write an exam before I get licensed to practice in my home country. So, I have to expand my base of knowledge beyond just memorizing notes like Avi's (and others). And I can only enrich my knowledge from textbooks and the few things I pick up from clincal practice. (And youtube videos help a LOT!). Maybe, just maybe, for those that have an automatic recognition of their diploma, then such students notes are enough for them to scale through medical school.
Good luck in your choice HellenitaPT. And please allow me to welcome you to the "hell-hole" called HU medical schools!

African child, thank you so much for your wise insights..Just tell me , what did you mean when you say "DOTE owes us a lot"?

Hi Dulgar, im a student from the uk, have been accepted 4 the medical course in debrecen. I dont know wat to do now looking at ur mail. what year are you in. Do you find it ok in terms of exams. How difficult is it. Is it possible to get help from students ther. Im looking to book accomodation however i dont know many areas apart from the hostels in the uni campus. Please could you advice me on the things to look out for before coming to debrecen. How can i prepare for the first year. what is the exam format, mcq, oral, essay written.

Originally Posted by Dulgar

I'm attending Debrecen Medical school.

I'm not very happy with it, it could be better in so many ways, mostly what you're going to do (or at least what I do) is going to be paying to private tutoring, finding past papers to study from, going through notes from elder students, skipping lectures and sleeping during seminars. I bought every book for first year and I ended up only having to open the anatomy book, everything else I just had to study from notes, because they don't really guide you very well here for you to know "ok these pages I have to study, this is important, blablabla". I'm not sure if it's the same in the other universities.

Oh, and befriend the Jewish community, they have everything you need to have in this country (past papers, notes) if they have the same power as in Debrecen.

Originally Posted by ahuss101

Hi Dulgar, im a student from the uk, have been accepted 4 the medical course in debrecen. I dont know wat to do now looking at ur mail. what year are you in. Do you find it ok in terms of exams. How difficult is it. Is it possible to get help from students ther. Im looking to book accomodation however i dont know many areas apart from the hostels in the uni campus. Please could you advice me on the things to look out for before coming to debrecen. How can i prepare for the first year. what is the exam format, mcq, oral, essay written.

Hey Congratulations on getting accepted first of all..

I'm a first year student, so I'm living through all the changes our dear dean decided to put us all through.

In terms of difficulty, the material to study is not difficult, figuring out WHAT to study is the difficult part because there is no guideline for us international students. For example medical chemistry is a trap after the other, the minimal list and the seminars don't teach you anything that will show up on the test.

We were taught to do calculations and they put a lot of emphasis on recognizing structures, at the end of the day the final exams and SCTs' only had like 1 or 2 structures to be recognized of out 30 if I remember right, can't remember..


Before explaining anything, I just want to clarify what minimals is, minimals is what they call for "Minimum requirement questions" and it can be "Explain Kinetic energy and write down the equaton", or "what does bit mean". Normally they won't look at the rest of your exam if you cannot answer the minimal part correctly, the minimal part is often referred to as "A" part.

The exams are just OK for certain subjects, during first semester you're going to read:

- Biostatistics for which you have to memorize about 150 minimals for a part that they call 'A' part, you get I think it was 10 questions out of those 150, if you answer the 'A' part wrong they won't look at your 'B' part (which is the main part) and fail you. For biostatistics you have one SCT during the semester, this to avoid doing the final exam. Some people, like myself, are saving this subject for fifth year since there are no other courses requiring this stupid subject. The subject is examined written. The 'B' part is essay with calculations. For this subject you MUST have past papers to understand how they ask their questions and how they want them answered, a lot of questions are repeated.

- Biophysics, here you will have an 'A' part and a 'B' part, for the 'A' part you have to memorize around 300 minimals, out of which you will be asked 10, if you fail the 'A' part they will not correct your 'B' part (main part). The 'B' part is essay, fill in questions and MCQ. For this subject you MUST have past papers to understand how they ask their questions and how they want them answered, also, a lot of questions are repeated, especially essay questions.

- Medical chemistry, this is just MCQ questions.

- Behavioral science or whatever they call it, this is just to waste your time, go to the lessons and study or sleep, it's a very stupid subject, basically just study from past-papers here.

- Informatics, more filler subjects, try to get exempted from this, the first day you're going to be tested on your Excel skills and Word skills, really basic stuff. If you pass the first day exam you get a 5 and you'll be free from this stupid subject.

- Librarian, learn how to search for information.. Basically sleep here or study or do anything but pay attention, you'll learn absolutely nothing that they won't push into your brain 2nd semester during first molecular biology lab which will last for +3 hours..
The exam here is so stupid and easy, that the teacher will even give you the answers..

- First aid, depending on the lecturer for your group, (mine had the most awesome lecturer ever) you will find that you learn or actually don't learn anything, the lectures are free to skip, the practicals or 'seminars' however are not. Here the exam will be a practical exam of basic CPR, everyone gets' full marks here.

Second semester:

- Molecular Biology, I don't know if this department is super mega lazy or what their problem is but, you're actually not going to have any seminars from lecturers, rather, you'll have seminars in student-presentation-form, where 3~5 students have to make a presentation about a random topic, you have to do 2 it is compulsory. Basically no one listens.. so just study or sleep. The SCT and finals are just a joke of same repeated questions over and over again during the years, maybe they add 1 or 2 new questions. You have 2 SCTs and one remedial (make-up) in case you failed one.

- Genetics, you get the questions form the teacher for this exam, around 500 questions roughly without answers to memorize and then some random MCQ, it's really easy, but most people decide to save it for 2nd year. There are 3 SCTs and 1 remedial, you have to attend to at least two exams to get a signature.

- Cell biology, this subject is the most important one together with anatomy for the next years to come, so try to attend lectures and is you have any questions, ask in the seminars. This is basically study the lecture slides, DO NOT STUDY WITHOUT LECTURE SLIDES YOU WILL NOT PASS, or at least not with a high grade. You need to understand that this department wants you to answer in their way, so you must look at past papers. Here you have to do one presentation and get grilled or praised by the professor/lecture assistant, if you hate doing presentations you can skip it and do an essay exam at some point "not sure".

Also you have labs, these labs have mini-exams before you are allowed to start, if you fail to do the exam, fail the exam or come late, you will be kicked out and asked to do this during the make up period (2 week period), the problem with this is that you will pass or fail depending on the teacher, I had a really bad chemistry with my teacher, so I failed 3 out of 4 lab exams, during the exam period I failed every exam during those weeks when I had that same professor, so basically I was doing one lab per day during 2 weeks, the moment I had another teacher I passed. If you fail these labs you will not get a signature.

- Anatomy department, this is the entrance to hell, where you will be suffering non-stop. You will have 3 Gross anatomy with some clinical stuff (depending on the professor), 2 histology exams and 1 embryology exam.

The anatomy part: You will have theoretical classes in dissection rooms with two cadavers, the professor/PhD student/Lecture Assistant will go through a whole list of blablabla and then if there is time you will get to do some practical stuff.
During your SCTs you will have an exam in front of the two cadavers that you have dissected, so familiarize yourself with these cadavers. Depending on the professor you will pass or not, if you have studied, it doesn't matter how much or how little you can, it's all depending on the professor.
There are some a-holes and there are some nice professor that just (maybe) haven't gotten laid or whatever in a while you can kind of sense this, the moment you sense this you know you're screwed no mater what you do.
Anyhow, you will be asked to pick a paper with a number/topic written on it and then they'll ask you or ask you to present your topic.

For histology: PAY ATTENTION during your labs, because the exact structures will be shown in the exam. The exam is a 5 show and 5 tell exam, that means it has 5 questions that will be "name this structure" or "name this structure and the staining", the structure/tissue/cell will be shown on the screen. The 5 tell part is a short essay part, basically JUST ANSWER WHAT THEY ASK FOR, if you add more information than is needed they will not accept your answer, if you add too little they wont accept it either. For example, for an exam "adipose tissue" would not suffice, you would have to answer "white adipose tissue and brown adipose tissue" even though, by saying adipose tissue you are referring to both.

For Embryology: You can just study from past papers, or that worked in the past, now they seem to be extremely picky with the answers you give. I passed with past papers purely by luck.

The 2nd semester is very important because of anatomy and cell biology, anatomy will have a theoretical part during 2nd year in which they will ask you about ANYTHING that you've learned or are supposed to have learned during your 2 years of anatomy. Cell biology on the other hand will lay the ground for A LOT of subjects, and make your life so much easier if you understand the concepts rather than cheat your way through.

For anatomy also, if you fail let's say all the SCTs, you will have all anatomy parts, embryology and the histology parts all in one day with no rest in-between, so try to pass at least 3/6 exams, and try not to have more than one anatomy exam on you. The anatomy exams share the same A,B,C chances so it's dangerous to have more than 2~3 SCTs failed. If you fail embryology SCT you will probably fail anatomy, most people that have failed anatomy either do it because of lower limb or embryology, since the final is corrected by stricter people. Spelling mistakes do matter here.

----

Since you're from the UK you won't find many form the UK in General medicine, most are in for the money in Dentistry . Do not hesitate one second to befriend upper year students, they will help you with everything they can, if possible try to befriend us (next semester) 2nd year students since we will have the most knowledge of how to pass first year, since we've been through A LOT of changes this year thanks to stupid dean..

----

Depending on where you want to live and how you are standing economically, coming from the UK you don't get loans and all that, you will want to live in one place or another, the most common streets with students are(close to uni), Doczy Joszef Utca, Komlossy Utca, Egyetem sugarut, Nagy Lajos Kiray Ter (can't spell this street nor pronunciate it...), Jeriko Utca and Bem Tér, obviously also around those areas.

If you want to live in the city then it's Piac Utca or Varga Utca.

----

Don't be stupid when you come here, don't let people run you over (that is, look out for the cars and rude people), you will have the real estate agencies trying to get the most out of you, you will have the education office confusing you, etc..

I had the education office confusing me, I put them in their place, not by arguing but by making them understand that I'm not going anywhere until my issue is solved, this is the only way you can make things work here, be annoying so they're forced to help to in order to get rid of you. I've never had any problems with anything here except for professors that clearly had a bad day or whatever, but never with my land-lord, or educational matter, because once you show them that you will stand your ground, they'll get it.

----

Also one last tip, buy one of those sleep mask when you're on the train or taxi from Budapest to Debrecen so you avoid seeing all the pooh pooh around, it will seriously make you question where you are, my first time on the way to debrecen I seriously thought I was in the wrong country, like in a Colombian Guerrilla zone.. Because of how building looked, not because there were any people running around with guns.. here they keep it cheap and try to kill you with cars or bicycles, seriously, Egyetem sugarut is a "walk here on your own risk" with the dangerous bicycles lol.

I hope this answered most of your questions.

Originally Posted by Dulgar

Hey Congratulations on getting accepted first of all..

I'm a first year student, so I'm living through all the changes our dear dean decided to put us all through.

In terms of difficulty, the material to study is not difficult, figuring out WHAT to study is the difficult part because there is no guideline for us international students. For example medical chemistry is a trap after the other, the minimal list and the seminars don't teach you anything that will show up on the test.

We were taught to do calculations and they put a lot of emphasis on recognizing structures, at the end of the day the final exams and SCTs' only had like 1 or 2 structures to be recognized of out 30 if I remember right, can't remember..


Before explaining anything, I just want to clarify what minimals is, minimals is what they call for "Minimum requirement questions" and it can be "Explain Kinetic energy and write down the equaton", or "what does bit mean". Normally they won't look at the rest of your exam if you cannot answer the minimal part correctly, the minimal part is often referred to as "A" part.

The exams are just OK for certain subjects, during first semester you're going to read:

- Biostatistics for which you have to memorize about 150 minimals for a part that they call 'A' part, you get I think it was 10 questions out of those 150, if you answer the 'A' part wrong they won't look at your 'B' part (which is the main part) and fail you. For biostatistics you have one SCT during the semester, this to avoid doing the final exam. Some people, like myself, are saving this subject for fifth year since there are no other courses requiring this stupid subject. The subject is examined written. The 'B' part is essay with calculations. For this subject you MUST have past papers to understand how they ask their questions and how they want them answered, a lot of questions are repeated.

- Biophysics, here you will have an 'A' part and a 'B' part, for the 'A' part you have to memorize around 300 minimals, out of which you will be asked 10, if you fail the 'A' part they will not correct your 'B' part (main part). The 'B' part is essay, fill in questions and MCQ. For this subject you MUST have past papers to understand how they ask their questions and how they want them answered, also, a lot of questions are repeated, especially essay questions.

- Medical chemistry, this is just MCQ questions.

- Behavioral science or whatever they call it, this is just to waste your time, go to the lessons and study or sleep, it's a very stupid subject, basically just study from past-papers here.

- Informatics, more filler subjects, try to get exempted from this, the first day you're going to be tested on your Excel skills and Word skills, really basic stuff. If you pass the first day exam you get a 5 and you'll be free from this stupid subject.

- Librarian, learn how to search for information.. Basically sleep here or study or do anything but pay attention, you'll learn absolutely nothing that they won't push into your brain 2nd semester during first molecular biology lab which will last for +3 hours..
The exam here is so stupid and easy, that the teacher will even give you the answers..

- First aid, depending on the lecturer for your group, (mine had the most awesome lecturer ever) you will find that you learn or actually don't learn anything, the lectures are free to skip, the practicals or 'seminars' however are not. Here the exam will be a practical exam of basic CPR, everyone gets' full marks here.

Second semester:

- Molecular Biology, I don't know if this department is super mega lazy or what their problem is but, you're actually not going to have any seminars from lecturers, rather, you'll have seminars in student-presentation-form, where 3~5 students have to make a presentation about a random topic, you have to do 2 it is compulsory. Basically no one listens.. so just study or sleep. The SCT and finals are just a joke of same repeated questions over and over again during the years, maybe they add 1 or 2 new questions. You have 2 SCTs and one remedial (make-up) in case you failed one.

- Genetics, you get the questions form the teacher for this exam, around 500 questions roughly without answers to memorize and then some random MCQ, it's really easy, but most people decide to save it for 2nd year. There are 3 SCTs and 1 remedial, you have to attend to at least two exams to get a signature.

- Cell biology, this subject is the most important one together with anatomy for the next years to come, so try to attend lectures and is you have any questions, ask in the seminars. This is basically study the lecture slides, DO NOT STUDY WITHOUT LECTURE SLIDES YOU WILL NOT PASS, or at least not with a high grade. You need to understand that this department wants you to answer in their way, so you must look at past papers. Here you have to do one presentation and get grilled or praised by the professor/lecture assistant, if you hate doing presentations you can skip it and do an essay exam at some point "not sure".

Also you have labs, these labs have mini-exams before you are allowed to start, if you fail to do the exam, fail the exam or come late, you will be kicked out and asked to do this during the make up period (2 week period), the problem with this is that you will pass or fail depending on the teacher, I had a really bad chemistry with my teacher, so I failed 3 out of 4 lab exams, during the exam period I failed every exam during those weeks when I had that same professor, so basically I was doing one lab per day during 2 weeks, the moment I had another teacher I passed. If you fail these labs you will not get a signature.

- Anatomy department, this is the entrance to hell, where you will be suffering non-stop. You will have 3 Gross anatomy with some clinical stuff (depending on the professor), 2 histology exams and 1 embryology exam.

The anatomy part: You will have theoretical classes in dissection rooms with two cadavers, the professor/PhD student/Lecture Assistant will go through a whole list of blablabla and then if there is time you will get to do some practical stuff.
During your SCTs you will have an exam in front of the two cadavers that you have dissected, so familiarize yourself with these cadavers. Depending on the professor you will pass or not, if you have studied, it doesn't matter how much or how little you can, it's all depending on the professor.
There are some a-holes and there are some nice professor that just (maybe) haven't gotten laid or whatever in a while you can kind of sense this, the moment you sense this you know you're screwed no mater what you do.
Anyhow, you will be asked to pick a paper with a number/topic written on it and then they'll ask you or ask you to present your topic.

For histology: PAY ATTENTION during your labs, because the exact structures will be shown in the exam. The exam is a 5 show and 5 tell exam, that means it has 5 questions that will be "name this structure" or "name this structure and the staining", the structure/tissue/cell will be shown on the screen. The 5 tell part is a short essay part, basically JUST ANSWER WHAT THEY ASK FOR, if you add more information than is needed they will not accept your answer, if you add too little they wont accept it either. For example, for an exam "adipose tissue" would not suffice, you would have to answer "white adipose tissue and brown adipose tissue" even though, by saying adipose tissue you are referring to both.

For Embryology: You can just study from past papers, or that worked in the past, now they seem to be extremely picky with the answers you give. I passed with past papers purely by luck.

The 2nd semester is very important because of anatomy and cell biology, anatomy will have a theoretical part during 2nd year in which they will ask you about ANYTHING that you've learned or are supposed to have learned during your 2 years of anatomy. Cell biology on the other hand will lay the ground for A LOT of subjects, and make your life so much easier if you understand the concepts rather than cheat your way through.

For anatomy also, if you fail let's say all the SCTs, you will have all anatomy parts, embryology and the histology parts all in one day with no rest in-between, so try to pass at least 3/6 exams, and try not to have more than one anatomy exam on you. The anatomy exams share the same A,B,C chances so it's dangerous to have more than 2~3 SCTs failed. If you fail embryology SCT you will probably fail anatomy, most people that have failed anatomy either do it because of lower limb or embryology, since the final is corrected by stricter people. Spelling mistakes do matter here.

----

Since you're from the UK you won't find many form the UK in General medicine, most are in for the money in Dentistry . Do not hesitate one second to befriend upper year students, they will help you with everything they can, if possible try to befriend us (next semester) 2nd year students since we will have the most knowledge of how to pass first year, since we've been through A LOT of changes this year thanks to stupid dean..

----

Depending on where you want to live and how you are standing economically, coming from the UK you don't get loans and all that, you will want to live in one place or another, the most common streets with students are(close to uni), Doczy Joszef Utca, Komlossy Utca, Egyetem sugarut, Nagy Lajos Kiray Ter (can't spell this street nor pronunciate it...), Jeriko Utca and Bem Tér, obviously also around those areas.

If you want to live in the city then it's Piac Utca or Varga Utca.

----

Don't be stupid when you come here, don't let people run you over (that is, look out for the cars and rude people), you will have the real estate agencies trying to get the most out of you, you will have the education office confusing you, etc..

I had the education office confusing me, I put them in their place, not by arguing but by making them understand that I'm not going anywhere until my issue is solved, this is the only way you can make things work here, be annoying so they're forced to help to in order to get rid of you. I've never had any problems with anything here except for professors that clearly had a bad day or whatever, but never with my land-lord, or educational matter, because once you show them that you will stand your ground, they'll get it.

----

Also one last tip, buy one of those sleep mask when you're on the train or taxi from Budapest to Debrecen so you avoid seeing all the pooh pooh around, it will seriously make you question where you are, my first time on the way to debrecen I seriously thought I was in the wrong country, like in a Colombian Guerrilla zone.. Because of how building looked, not because there were any people running around with guns.. here they keep it cheap and try to kill you with cars or bicycles, seriously, Egyetem sugarut is a "walk here on your own risk" with the dangerous bicycles lol.

I hope this answered most of your questions.

Wow. Looks like someone cleared all the SCT's