Russian medicine

[ScottinCrimea]

How many of you guys who are or have been married to a RW have had to deal with their concept of medical care?  I'm Board Certified in Family Medicine and have spent the better part of 20 years practicing Emergency Medicine, but it seems according to the locals, especially my wife, I have no clue.  For example, right now she is suffering from laryngitis/tracheitis.  Every explanantion I have tried to give her for how this started and every treatment option I have suggested have been soundly rejected.  It seems she is more willing to listen to old wives' tales and the suggestions of friends and casual acquaintenances than mine, probably because they are more in line with what she has been told in the past.  Every attempt to provide a scientific explanation for her symptoms and proposed treatment is rejected.  I spent time last summer on the beach working as a massage therapist just for the experience and I was amazed to see how many trusted their massagist more than their doctor.  But then some of the things that they said they had been told by their doctors really concerned me.  There is a lot of psuedscience being passed off here as medicine.  I got a real taste of it this year when my wife's grandmother was ill and eventually died.  that's a whole story in itself that I may choose to share sometime.  I would be interested to hear from those with Ukrainian/Russian wives what their experiences have been

[LEGAL]

We have a joke in Russia - If a patient wants to live, the medicine in such a case are powerless 

Olga.

[Patrick]

Scott, I hear where you are coming from. My wife is from the mountains of Western Ukraine. I have heard for 3 years now, how their doctors are the best and all our doctors want is the money. In the same breath I am told that to get good care you have to pay the doctors more money and or bribes to the nurses just to get to the doctors. She wanted to take a bottle of wine to the doctor here when she went to see her. I did not mind, the doctor did not mind and it made Maryna feel better about going so who knows. All I know is I was out the co-pay and a nice bottle of Stags Leap Ca Red and still had to hear how our doctors are crooks.

[Son of Clyde]

Welcome to the club.
My wife complains if she has to wait 20 minutes, if she is led into a private room and has to wait and if the doctor spends less than 20 minutes with her. FSU people are used to more personalized care. Who cares if the doctor is no more than a glorified RN.
These women look more at personal care than actual credentials.
Scott, I am not living in Crimea (you are) and I still think I am correct in everything I just posted. Sad but true.

[DKMM]

Now there is a nice cultural crossover, your lucky doctor got a bottle of some fine cabernet there.

I'm not married yet but I've experienced the same but only from an UW and not a RW. 

Maybe you could point out things like comparative life expectancies?  Or perhaps the fact that people come to America for medical service from around the world?  Why is the best hospital in Kyiv the American Medical Center?  Why does the US Embassey sell insurance that covers, amongst other things, evacuation abroad in severe cases?

OK I digress.  Must be a difficult thing to deal with since you don't want to offend.

[ScottinCrimea]

Medical education in Ukraine is more equivalent to a Master's Degree in the US.  After completing school at age 17, anyone who wants can enter the Medical University.  It is a six year program with the first three years being taught in English to accomodate all the foreign students, since that is the most widely spoken language.  Unfortunately many of the professors don't speak English well so they basically memorize the lecture or just read it.  Until I started providing some medical texts in English to the local Medical Institute, there were none.  After their 6 years, they are officialy doctors and can practice.  That's why you see so many nice looking 23 year old doctors on the dating sites. Compare this to my 4 years of pre-med, 4 years of med school and 4 years of residency and you get some idea of their limits.  The other big problem is that graduation relies more on providing "gifts" of cash to the professors than it does on actual test results.  If you don't come up with several thousand a year for this, you don't graduate.
     As I write, my wife is holding a Bioptron light to her throat to cure her laryngitis, having ignored all of my suggestions.

[Bruce]

You can not convince the old folk that "energy" matters and that some old grandfather or grandmother in the forest can cure all their problems with energy transfer / absorbtion and reallocation (sort of like the episode of Star Trek called "The Empath") as well as acurately predict the future.  My wife has come around to the value of US medicine.  Looking at the quality of her radiographs after the accident in the FSU vs her full spine MRI made a believer of her.  Food of course is another thing she likes here ie. availability.  Changing beliefs is a very difficult thing to do and going to the old guy or gal in the forest to cure their problems just is very difficult to alter.

[Phil dAmore]

It could be worse.  You wife could have total faith and unshakable belief in this guy:

http://www.fhal.ru/books_of_Doctor_S.S.Konovalov.htm

A little bit more about him:

http://www.creationpublishing.co.uk/site/about.html

Nina swears by him, attends his 'healing sessions' twice a week, and has done so for at least 9 years.  The fact that her health has not improved one iota seems to be lost on her.  To hear Nina say it (speaking of herself), "I'm just not trying hard enough"

IMO this Konovalov is a charlatan of the highest order.  A Snake-Oil salesman without the Snake Oil.  He has otherwise intelligent people convinced that he, and he alone can channel 'positive healing energy' from ... somewhere, and direct it to the individual if only they are willing to receive it.

I made the mistake of trying to explain to Nina that she should at least consider the possibility that this guy is full of дермо.  She moved out on me for a week and still, over 2 years later still hasn't completely forgiven me.

Being the open-minded sort I read his one and only book that is in English "I Can Take Your Pain Away" (How arrogant is that?) It consisted mostly of testimonials from other patients (all conveniently identified by a number to which only The Good Doctor has the key!) extolling how he was able to cure everything from warts to cancer... even making physical scars disappear simply by using the 'Energy of Creation'  ???

By the way, what you are experiencing with your wife is not limited to medicine.  It's a manifestation of what I have come to call 'The Cement Effect'  Once they make up their mind about something, nothing.. absolutely NOTHING will change their minds, and any attempts to correct them will likely be met with indifference at best, and a worst... well, you just don't want to know.

[Bruce]

Wow, and this guy does not even live in the forest!

[LEGAL]

Charlatans - natural  healers are big problem in Russia. It is the cause and effect of distrust Russian medicine, lack of money to get a good medical service and Russian age-old  habit and trajectory  to be preoccupied with a self-treatment.

Olga.
 

[ScottinCrimea]

     Boy Phil, I feel for you!  I guess I don't have it so bad.  Any kind of "treatment" that depends more on testimonials than research to sell itself can't be taken seriously.  But it's not only Russians who do this as this kind of attitude is rampant in the US as well.  But I think many Russian doctors are very sincere, just very ill trained or have listende to the wrong salesmen.
     One strange experience I had was a woman from Moscow I met who had sciatica.  She told me that the doctors at the clinic at the sanitorium here in Crimea told her that this was caused by problems with the uterus and that this was a common problem caused by the cold wet weather in Moscow.  They told her that they were the only ones in Crimea who could offer her the latest treatment for this.  I never got to talk to her again to see what exactly the treatment was or if it helped.  I could go on and on with the strange things doctors here have told people.

[Mir]

Well in a way the probelm with uterus (pregnancy) can cause or contribute to sciatica in some

[SANDRO43]

She told me that the doctors at the clinic at the sanitorium here in Crimea told her that this was caused by problems with the uterus and that this was a common problem caused by the cold wet weather in Moscow.  They told her that they were the only ones in Crimea who could offer her the latest treatment for this... I never got to talk to her again to see what exactly the treatment was or if it helped.

Pity, I was wondering whether they, too, might be suggesting that those problems could be cured by exercising the affected organ, thereby confirming a therapeutical approach apparently shared by many FSU doctors .

[Muckraker]

Yeah what is even more fun is the issue of appropriate care for the first baby!  Not so much from the wife, but from the rest of her Russian Advisor's Network.  I think trusting US medicine is a necessary step before having a baby here. Otherwise there's going to be a lot of friction at a time when you really don't need it.

Apparently we were supposed to assign all right and title to the baby to mother-in-law since she is Babushka now, and forever and irrevocably consent to any and all Russian medical voo-doo deemed necessary for the baby by Babushka and/or her advisors (including what the dead relatives tell her to do in her dreams). 

Fortunately, we live in America and aren't subject to Babushka law.  Mother-in-law went back home two weeks early.  She insisted on taking a cab to the airport by herself. 

Muck

[KenC]

Fortunately, we live in America and aren't subject to Babushka law.  Mother-in-law went back home two weeks early.  She insisted on taking a cab to the airport by herself. 

Muck

OUCH, Now that doesn't sound too good.  I have my stories too regarding RW and modern medicine.  Like the time my wife and mother in law attacked me to rub vodka on my back to cure bronchitis.  Uh huh, whatever.  My MIL brings over a new stash of voodoo meds every trip.
KenC

[LEGAL]

Vodka is very good medicine 
 Especially if you have caught cold - drink some vodka with cayenne and apply a honey compress   

Olga.

[ScottinCrimea]

    How about the vodka mixed with a lot of salt remedy?  Not really sure what it fixes, but it's guaranteed that you will say you are better so you don't get a second dose!
     We're always being asked to give people injections of something or the other. The doctor will write a prescription for some injectable med and have them find someone to give it to them.  They are very similar to Mexico in that they believe that an injection is better than oral meds.  So instead of taking an antibiotic pill like Keflex three times a day, they will get an injection 3 times a day for ten days.  When I first came over Ella's grandmother was ill and was prescribed three separate IV injections she had to receive daily for 10 days.  Guess who got to find a new vein every day and inject 20cc's through a dull needle?
     As far as the lady with sciatica, the pregnancy or "recreational" therapeutics ideas don't work because she was in her 50's.

[wiz]

In my post "The Dilemma" I said that the biggest user of Sofia is her cousin in the UK.

What actually is happening is that her cousin has a lot of Russian friends, here in the UK,  who visit her or talk to her on the phone and every time they need Medical advice Sofia's cousin is on the phone to her for FREE Medical advice. These women do not visit their NHS GP who is FREE but prefer to ask the Russian Doctor Sofia for advice.

Last August one evening I was waiting for Sofia to go out and she was 1 1/2 hour late because she had many of these women in her cousin's house for consultation......of course Sofia never said anything to me, just that there were many Russian women friends around and she could not get away.....but it was obvious what was going on.

BTW Sofia is a member of this board and reads this interesting thread for Medical matters but will not post because she feels her English is not good enough and everybody will think she is stupid!.....LOL

I am sure she has the insider’s knowledge and tales to enlighten us all…….LOL

[I/O]

Like the time my wife and mother in law attacked me to rub vodka on my back to cure bronchitis.  Uh huh, whatever. 

KenC Can't see any reason to object to that. I'm happy for mine to rub my back with just about whatever she likes (Within Reason) and if sis and mum want to join in too, well....................................

I/O

[Bruce]

I have had to repeatedly prove to MIL that her theories about young children are just mere folklore totally not based in reality.  It has created some friction, but she has enjoyed her stay here over all.  Her negatives are missing home and lack of understanding of the culture.  I suppose I have not been all fun, but I can not see my daughter subjected to retardation when I am there anyway.   In the summer unfortunately she'll be there with MIL and the forest all she can handle.  Lets hope she does not get sick.  My wife somehow thinks that if she sits on cold ie. in the snow for any length of time her uterus will have a problem.  I just call things like that retardation.  Luckily, my wife reads and I show her time and again in writing how wrong she is...........which eventually sinks in.

[Darth Vader]

Ditto to most of what has been said...my wife has strange ideas about what causes sicknesses and how to cure them.

When i finally got her to the doctor for her infected throat and got some antibiotics, she refused to obey his orders to complete the cycle and take them all.  I told her why she needed to also....but when the pain went away she refused to take any more pills.  Yes, it returned....

[ScottinCrimea]

I finally realized that it was next to impossible to convince them here that many of their ideas or their doctors' diagnoses were wrong and that it was a waste of effort to try.  I'm used to explaining in detail the causes and effects of various illnesses and remedies, but here, they don't care about the details, they just want to know how to fix it.  So if they come to me with some bizarre diagnosis, I just say, "Okay, you have such and such, here's how to fix it..."  If you don't fight their cultural beliefs and sound convincing enough, they'll do just about anything you tell them, but usually the more unconventional the better. Like many cases in Western medicine, the treatment does nothing to help the illness, it just gives them something to do until they get better naturally.

[LEGAL]

Wrong doctors' diagnoses!!!
My mother was within a hair's breadth of death because of wrong diagnosis.

In Russia you can buy all what you want if you have a big money, especially education.  Stupid and lazy student studies at the Medical Academy because his rich father pays in cash for it.

Olga.

[LEGAL]

In Russia one of the methods of self-treatment is a self-treatment with leeches.
A neighbour of my grandmother (I was calling her babushka Luba) had two glass jars with leeches. When I was a little girl I liked to watch these monsters.
One day I discovered that many leeches lived in the ditch near grandmother's house and decided to make present to babushka Luba. I took a small pan and caught many big nice looking leeches. The small pan was full to the brim. I covered pan with a lid and put it on kitchen table.
My grandfather the whole day was trying to calm my grandmother. She was afraid of leeches and she got a shock when she opened her favourite small pan.

Olga.



 

[Darth Vader]

Men in the fsu are quite healthy....why?  Scenes like this on the streets....

For men....this is very good treatment...great for your heart, indeed