21 hours ago, gfweb said:How is Russian medicine? Acceptable?
Thirty years ago, I spent time working in London and Moscow on a joint-governmental medical exchange program.
In the 1940s, Stalin declared the Soviet healthcare system to be the world's best and therefore it had nothing to learn from anyone else. So he cut off all international scientific and medical cooperation. This lasted well into the 1980s, when tentative cooperation began.
It rapidly became clear that exchange was going to be largely one way. Soviet medicine, like so many other facets of life, had stagnated and the system was near bankrupt. And corruption was endemic.
London, we issued invitations for Soviet medical staff to visit the UK and take part in exchange programs lasting from a week to several months. This was partially government funded, with the rest being made up from charitable and institutional funds.
We immediately hit a problem. It was always a priority that any knowledge exchange be sustainable - i.e. that the immediate beneficiary of the exchange be able to pass on that knowledge to colleagues back home. This required identifying the right personnel to invite.
Instead, what often happened was that Hospital XX would receive an invite for say an anesthetics specialist, a nurse trainer and a cardiologist to take part in the program, only for three party officials with no medical background to turn up.
I then spent the next year full time in Russia vetting the applicants to see if they knew which end of a thermometer was which.
One area we were never able to be effective was in nutrition. It's very limited what you can do to introduce theories of best practice when there is no food.
Hopefully, my info is very outdated and things have improved immeasurably, not only in the restaurant business but in medical catering and nutritional awareness.
