World War II marked the end of an era in the medical profession as well. The communist takeover changed the public health system from the ground up. Academic achievement and career came to depend on political reliability, in medicine as in all walks of society. After 1945, everyone was “cadred,” having their data and view put under surveillance by the authorities, especially in respect of those in a senior position, in terms of their family background, views of Marxism-Leninism, and their conduct and behavior. The so-called “cadre file” found among Barát’s personal records qualified her as suitable for filling her post on the grounds that “there have been no objections, professional or political, against the subject. She has evidenced a rather democratic attitude in the past as well as in the present.” While the 1950s in Hungary were spent eradicating middle-class bourgeois structures considered “stunted vestiges” of capitalism, her colleague Miklós Böszörményi spared no effort in explaining the middle-class origins of Barát: “She came into close contact with broad masses of the Hungarian people afflicted by tuberculosis, including farmers, who resolved in the last hour to board up in the sanatorium. […] She is highly educated and deeply committed to society.” In her autobiography, however, Barát herself emphasized that “I was filled to the brim with emotions for society as I treated the victims of this Hungarian misery. […] I am thrilled to be part of the political training offered by the Party.”