The course of the labs

Students must show up at the labs on schedule, wearing their white lab coat. The department does not lend lab coats for the students. Coats and bags should be placed into the cupboards in the hall. Students should take the practical course handout and their writing implements with them to the workbench. Students who are late or who are not properly equipped (do not have a lab coat or have not brought a freshly printed blank – i.e. without any results filled in - laboratory handout) are not allowed to take part in the lab.

Entrance tests: at the beginning of each lab students write a ten-question entrance test. The test is meant to verify whether the student is properly prepared for that particular lab. Students have 5 minutes to write the entrance tests. Students, who for any reason, have not taken the entrance test during the designated time, will not be allowed to attend the lab.

After the entrance test, the instructor demonstrates experiments together with the equipment to be used during that given lab. This is the time when students may ask questions, if any, with regard to the topic of that given lab.

Next, the group carries out the practical tasks under the guidance of the instructor. This may include watching video films or trying out of some instruments.

After the demonstration(s) the students will carry out the set tasks independently or in co-operation with their neighbors according to the instructions in the laboratory handout. Note that students should study and discuss the tasks and restate the questions to be answered based on the results of the experiments. When filling out the results tables in the handouts students must record only the real results of the experiments and observations.

At the end of the lab the instructor and the students will evaluate and discuss the results. Afterwards, the instructor will check whether the results tables in the handouts have been properly filled out.

The lab ends with tidying up the practical room, cleaning and/or putting the tools used during the lab in order they were found. Since modern and expensive tools and instruments are used during the course of the lab, it is important to clean them properly. Finally, the instruments should be returned to the assistant.

The aim of the physiology lab is to prepare students for manual work as well as to give them an insight into experimental work. The use of live tissues and organs from experimental animals that have been bred for experimental purposes is therefore indispensable. Tissues and organs will be obtained from anaesthetized or over-anaesthetized animals. In the course of animal experiments we strictly observe the animal welfare regulations currently in force. According to the 3R (Reduction, Refinement, Replacement) principle supported by the European Community we use the fewest possible experimental animals. The animal experiments are authorized by the Budapest State Veterinary Authority and the internal animal welfare community. Please note that animal experiments should be carried out manually by each Student otherwise the given lab will be regarded as not accepted.