[Budapest physicians practicing alternative medicine (based on a September 1991 survey)]

Our essay is the first attempt to raise the problems related to the Hungarian alternative medicine and to outline the tendencies in this field. In our research we tried to find answers to the following questions: 1. whether the physicians in disadvantageous position show a greater tendency to start dealing with alternative medicine, in order to make up for their low income; 2. to what extent can the appearance of the alternative practitioners on the market be regarded as a practice aimed merely at acquiring the maximum income; 3. we wanted to know the opinion of the physicians in connection with the regulation of alternative medicine, and 4. whether the cast of mind interiorized at the university can place the physicians into a disadvantageous position, as contrasted to those alternative practitioners who do not possess a university degree, because the physicians, just owing to the assumption of specific values, may be ousted from certain areas of the market. Twenty-eight alternative practitioners having physician certificate were interviewed, all of them being residents in Budapest, by means of telephone conversations. Owing to the small number of the questioned persons, our results represent merely the tendencies. Based on the acquired data, a negative answer must be given to the first question: that means, at the time of conducting the survey, alternative medicine can not be regarded as a form of finding a way out for the physicians in disadvantageous position.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)