Emergency medicine in Eastern Europe: the Hungarian experience.

The past decade has brought numerous dramatic changes in health care reform to Hungary. The area of acute care medicine has only recently been recognized as an important component in securing proper health care for Hungarians. Emergency medicine as a recognized and accepted specialty is only now beginning to get peer, governmental, and public support. This article describes the past, present, and future of emergency medicine in Hungary and is offered as a model for other Eastern European countries in similar sociopolitical situations.