Semmelweis University Clinics Careers, Salaries & Jobs

Semmelweis University was founded in 1769 and is a medical and health sciences university in Budapest.

Its Clinical Centre brings together all the university departments that provide curative, preventive and rehabilitative patient care, together with the units that support them, under a President who is also the Vice-Rector for Clinical Affairs.

The university describes itself as Hungary's largest healthcare provider. It runs 2,458 active and 860 chronic inpatient beds across more than forty departments, and says its clinics care for around 10.6 percent of patients in Hungary. In 2025 it treated more than 188,000 cases of almost 120,000 inpatients and 3.6 million cases of 553,000 outpatients.

Its best-known services include organ transplantation at the Department of Surgery, Transplantation and Gastroenterology and the Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center, neurosurgery and neurointervention, and a growing robotic surgery programme. The university has taught medicine in German since 1983 and in English since 1989, so many international graduates know it as a place of study.

For an internationally trained doctor, nurse or other health professional, the important point is that clinical work is done in Hungarian. The university advertises its healthcare vacancies in Hungarian on its own careers pages, and we found no programme for recruiting clinical staff from abroad. You need your qualification recognised, a place on the OKFŐ practising register and the right residence permit before you can work there independently.

Run by

Semmelweis University

Leadership

• Attila Szabó, President of the Clinical Centre and Vice-Rector for Clinical Affairs

Switchboard

+36 1 459 1500

• Organ transplantation

  The university performs organ transplants. In 2025 the Department of Surgery, Transplantation and Gastroenterology carried out Hungary's first robot-assisted live-donor kidney removal for transplantation, and the lung transplant programme at the Department of Thoracic Surgery marked its 10th anniversary.

• Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center

  The university's cardiology and cardiac surgery centre, which performed Hungary's first MR-guided catheter ablation in 2025 and is the subject of a HUF 9.1 billion investment, according to the university.

• Neurosurgery and neurointervention

  The Department of Neurosurgery and Neurointervention reports a Diamond Status award for stroke care in 2025 and the first use in Hungary of an endoscopic spinal technique for disc herniation.

• Robotic and paediatric surgery

  In 2025 the university reported Hungary's first robot-assisted liver surgery on a child, with six robot-assisted paediatric liver operations that year.

• Otorhinolaryngology

  The Department of Otorhinolaryngology reports restoring hearing in four patients with robot-assisted cochlear implant surgery in 2025.

• Medical imaging

  The Medical Imaging Center opened a Siemens Naeotom Alpha.Prime photon-counting CT scanner on 9 January 2025.

• Internal medicine and oncology

  A large internal medicine and oncology department that regularly advertises posts for graduate nurses and intensive care specialist nurses.

• Semmelweis University does not publish an international recruitment programme for doctors or nurses. Its careers pages list healthcare, teaching and research, leadership and other posts in Hungarian, and the healthcare adverts we read in October 2026 did not mention relocation support, visa sponsorship or help for overseas applicants.
• Applications go straight to the university's human resources directorate by email, quoting the reference number in the advert. International applicants usually reach the university the same way as Hungarian candidates: by answering an advert once their qualification is recognised, or by first studying or completing a recognition adaptation period in Hungary.
• Benefits the university advertises to nurses include free accommodation in a nurses' hostel, which can matter if you are moving from abroad. Check the individual advert, because benefits vary by post.
• The university's long-running English- and German-language degree programmes are for students. They do not create a route into clinical employment, and graduates from those programmes still need Hungarian for patient care in the public system.

• Recognition of your qualification. For qualifications from outside the EU, medical, dental, pharmacy and other degree-level health qualifications are recognised by the Educational Authority (Oktatási Hivatal), while non-EU secondary-level qualifications, such as many nursing diplomas, and non-EU specialist qualifications after the basic degree is recognised go to the OKFŐ. Qualifications from EU member states all go to the OKFŐ.

• Possible conditions. If an expert finds substantial differences, the authority can require exams, practice or up to a year of supervised work at an accredited provider before it declares your qualification equivalent. Supervised work during an adaptation period must be reported to the OKFŐ within 15 days of starting.

• Registration. Once recognised you appear in the OKFŐ basic register, and you then apply for the practising register (működési nyilvántartás), which runs in five-year cycles. Nurses and other health professionals must first join MESZK; doctors and dentists do not need MOK membership to register.

• Hungarian. There is no single published CEFR level for foreign-trained staff, but the Health Act gives patients the right to a doctor who can communicate with them in Hungarian and lets the OKFŐ refuse registration where required language knowledge is not proved. The Semmelweis adverts we read are in Hungarian and assume Hungarian-speaking staff.

• Residence status. Act C of 2001 lets a non-EU national apply for recognition for work only with a residence permit for work or family reunification, with a limited exception where an employer has applied for certain permits. For doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists and degree-level nurses and midwives the EU Blue Card salary floor in 2026 is 800,838 Ft gross a month.

• Guest-worker permits closed. The immigration authority (OIF) says no new guest-worker residence permits can be requested from 6 June 2026, so most non-EU clinicians now look at the EU Blue Card or a family-based permit.

1. 1

   Check which authority recognises your qualification

   Use the OKFŐ allocation table and search tool to confirm whether the Oktatási Hivatal or the OKFŐ handles your diploma, and prepare certified copies with certified Hungarian translations.
2. 2

   Sort out your residence status

   Check with the authority how the residence-permit condition in Act C of 2001 applies to you before you apply for recognition, and plan the permit you will use, usually the EU Blue Card for degree-level roles.
3. 3

   Get recognised and registered

   Meet any conditions in the recognition decision, then apply for the OKFŐ practising register. Nurses join MESZK through the regional organisation for their workplace first.
4. 4

   Find a vacancy on the Semmelweis careers pages

   Healthcare posts are listed under 'Egészségügyi munkakörök' at semmelweis.hu/human/category/karrier/. Each advert names the department, location, contract type and the reference number to quote.
5. 5

   Email your application

   Send your CV, copies of your qualifications and the signed data processing consent to [email protected], quoting the advert's reference number, as the adverts instruct.
6. 6

   Interview and contract

   Posts we read were full-time, open-ended health service employment relationships with a four-month probation period. Make sure your registration and permit are in place before your start date.

Monthly amounts

• Doctor, 0 to 2 years of practice

  687,837 Ft

  Annex 1, Act C of 2020.

• Doctor, 6 to 10 years

  1,231,212 Ft

  Annex 1.

• Doctor, 16 to 20 years

  1,491,679 Ft

  Annex 1.

• Health professionals, pay class I: 304,000 to 469,000 Ft (basic); 377,000 to 529,000 Ft (higher)Annex 1/A. Pay class depends on qualification and job.
• Health professionals, pay class III: 410,000 to 684,000 Ft (basic); 498,000 to 770,000 Ft (higher)Annex 1/A.
• Semmelweis nurse benefits: 240,000 Ft SZÉP card a year, 10% career-model supplement, free nurses' hostelFrom a Semmelweis graduate nurse advert, October 2026. Varies by post.