The History of the Department of Laboratory Medicine

Patient care began in 1920's in the clinics of the University of Debrecen. In the initial few decades diagnostics basically consisted of microbiological and serological analyses similarly to international trends at that time. In the 40's and 50's the clinical chemical and haematological laboratory equipment development received a huge boost following important breakthroughs, e.g., Beckman developed the spectrophotometer, Coulter worked out the principle of cell-counting, which revolutionized laboratory analysis. In the 50's and 60's these developments resulted in the setting up of central laboratories in hospitals in Hungary as well. The establishment of central diagnostic laboratories in the Hungarian medical universities took place much later. The Central Clinical Chemistry Laboratory was established on 1st January 1978 in Debrecen , and at present is known as the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Debrecen . This laboratory started its function as a "typical basement laboratory" in two small halls beneath the Department of Internal Medicine and in two unused seminar rooms. In the year of its establishment the department carried out only 10 types of analyses and the number of examinations carried out per year was 251,000. In 2007, 2.7 million examinations were performed from more than 255 types of laboratory tests, and more than 50 types of tests are available around the clock. This important development is one of the reasons why this website was created. The main purpose of this website is to provide the clinicians an overview of our department's diagnostic profile, as well as to distribute general, scientific, and educational information concerning our department.