Sándor Kalmár M.D., Ph.D. is a well-known teacher and physician in Bács-Kiskun County, Hungary. He is a psychiatrist with a background in neurology, social medicine and public health.

Dr Kalmár’s main areas of interest in Psychiatry, Neurology and Social Medicine and Public Health are psychopathology, disturbances of perception, depressive disorders, suicide and its prevention, the role of teaching of GP’s in suicide prevention, alcohol induced disorders, quality assurance in Psychiatry, Internet and Psychiatry, the role of Primary Health Care in the Psychiatry, education of medical students, teaching General Practitioners, psychiatrists, nonprofessional people and civilian population.

Dr. Kalmár participated in the Prototype Depression Recognition and Suicide Prevention Program in Eastern Europe: a Pilot Project in the region of Kiskunhalas, Hungary, which was supported by Prof. Dr. Herbert Hendin and Prof. Dr. J. John Mann on behalf of the management of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) similar to the Gotland study. During this education program run by Hungarian and American experts in psychiatry Dr. Kalmár participated in lectures and seminars.

Dr. Kalmár has lived and worked all his life in Bács-Kiskun County. He received his primary school degree in Baja, then he worked as a primary school teacher. After that, he studied at the University of Szeged. Dr. Kalmár received his M.D. degree from Szentgyörgyi Albert University in Szeged. He studied three medical specialities: Neurology, Psychiatry, and Social Medicine. He obtained a Summa Cum Laude PhD. degree from the Semmelweis University in Budapest for his doctoral dissertation titled, “The consequences of the self-destructive behaviour with special consideration of the suicide and its prevention opportunities. Bács-Kiskun County. 1995-2006.”

Dr. Kalmár is the editor of a book, and the author of the first Hungarian Psychiatric Dictionary, the first Hungarian Neurological Dictionary, the Hungarian version of the Complex Diagnostic Evaluation of Depressive Disorders by Thomas Ban, the Hungarian version of the Complex Diagnostic Evaluation of Hyperthymic Disorders by Peter Gaszner and Thomas Ban, Psychiatric Propedeutics, and some chapters in different books. He is the author of several medical articles.

In his leisure time, Dr. Kalmár likes listening music, travelling abroad and inland. He is interested in the Greek and Hindu mythology and religion.

He believes and accepts the following statements as basic principles:

• What is our task in the world? To struggle for the noblest aims as our strength permits (Thoughts in the Library by M.Vörösmarty 1844.)
• The person is not only the body and soul. Every human being has a lot of deep, complicated, ramified biological or somatic, psychic, cultural (mythological, historical, social) and spiritual roots. This is the foundation of each medical practice.
• If we teach more we must cure less. (József Fodor)
• It is only with one’s heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. (Antoine de Saint Exupery)
• Everyone has to find his or her own way to the truth. (Father Georgi Tailov, 1990. Riga)