Dr. Gábor Horváth, assistant professor at the UP CC Department of Paediatrics and educator of the Anatomy Department, was chosen into the leadership of the Hungarian Medical Association of America (HMAA) as the first member to live and practice in Hungary at the congress held in Sarasota, Florida. A
According to their website, the Hungarian Medical Association of America is a non-profit association based in the USA, that collects doctors and researchers of Hungarian origin, aiming to preserve, maintain and signal boost Hungarian medical tradition and ideas, and to support Hungarian medical training. The association has over half a century of history.
Dr. Gábor Horváth – who has been a member of the association since 2010 – was chosen as a leadership member at the latest, 53rd congress, his mandate lasts four years. The HMAA has not had a leadership member so far who was not based in the USA.
“We have had an exchange program for 30 years with the HMAA, with which there is a possibility to spend three months at the Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. For me, this opportunity was granted in 2010, when I spend a quarter of a year there with American medical students, to spend my practice in the American healthcare system. I was able to use my experience in my work back home here. The scholarship has granted this opportunity for almost 400 medical students from the four Hungarian medical universities, Pécs usually has 2-4 students in the exchange program each year. Three years ago, another exchange program was started with the help of the Hungarian Medical Association of America, that allows students to visit the Houston Methodist Hospital, this also had participants from Pécs” – said dr. Gábor Horváth, who has an active participant of the association ever since.
The Pécs paediatrician was chosen as the HMAA’s Hungarian collaborator in 2015, and he has also participated in the organisation of the yearly Sarasota congress for five years. He said that with association is coordinating a cooperation between the University of Pécs and the University of Massachusetts. He added, that the association has lately also contacted Canadian Hungarian doctors. As a results, a bilateral Canadian-Hungarian Healthcare Collaboration program has started to form, including the UP Medical School, the University of Toronto and McMaster University – this would further broaden the international possibilities at the Pécs Medical School.