Doctor's Case

This story happened two years ago. Scary story. Perhaps you have heard. About Masha Demina from Novosibirsk. This was a famous girl in the region. The first person born here in the 21st century. In the first minutes of January 1, 2001. You can imagine how many celebrations, congratulations, and journalists there were. Everyone wished them health, a long, interesting, happy life. It didn't come true. Masha died in June 2004.

I say - a terrible story, although for Russia the story is generally ordinary. And, probably, they would not have known about her throughout the country if the child had not been famous. Masha caught a cold, her temperature rose, then she became very ill, an ambulance arrived, gave her an injection, then the district doctor came and diagnosed her with ARVI. It wasn’t getting better, the doctor was called again, but the doctor didn’t come at all, then the ambulance arrived again - double pneumonia, purulent pleurisy, cerebral edema - and the child died.

The parents filed a lawsuit against the district pediatrician Kulikova. The trial has been going on since 2004, and the trial ended the other day. Kulikova was found guilty of “improper performance of professional duties.” They gave me two years, but immediately released me under an amnesty in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Duma. The doctor will continue to treat children. And she’s appealing the verdict because she’s sure that she treated her correctly, but the parents didn’t show proper care for their daughter—it’s all their own fault.

Here's the story. Which upset me to the extreme. But here, of course, it’s also personal. I have a small child myself. Girl. By coincidence, she was born on the very days when these tragic events unfolded in Novosibirsk. I remember the first thing we did was try to find a normal children’s doctor, so that if possible we would not have to deal with the regional children’s medicine. Not because they are all killer doctors. But we didn’t want to risk the child’s health at all.

By the way, I recently got sick myself. Nothing extraordinary, rather everything is very typical, but that’s why I’m telling you. Called the doctor. The doctor has arrived. I say, you can wash your hands over there. “I won’t wash my hands!” — she answered angrily, as if I had suggested, on the contrary, to dirty them. In the next three minutes, they briefly questioned me, took a quick look at my throat from a distance, and advised me to gargle it more often and drink hot tea with cranberries.

For some reason the cranberries didn't help. After a few days of “treatment,” the temperature dropped to about forty, and an ambulance was called. The ambulance in the form of a hairy Aibolit walked through without taking off his shoes, did not wash his hands, wiped them with a paper napkin, asked if I had AIDS, gonorrhea, hepatitis and if I had been to Africa. Paracelsus wrote something down somewhere for a long time, then suddenly asked me to measure my temperature! Then I wrote it down again... and decided that I had to go to the hospital! What the hell am I going to do in the hospital? Saturday evening - no doctors. There won't be any on Sunday either. Walk-through only on Monday morning. Before they actually begin to treat, it will take almost two days from the moment you are admitted to the hospital! I didn’t go anywhere, Avicenna asked me to write a refusal, I wrote it, he left.

I had to look for a paid doctor through friends. Found it. For a small amount, they did tests on me, took a cardiogram, listened to all my lungs, tested my kidneys and liver, examined my skin, lymph nodes, palpated my stomach and God knows what else. I spent an hour and a half with the doctor, who made a diagnosis, prescribed medications, and after a couple of days I was like a cucumber.

And then you can ask a million questions. I was cured because for money? Or to places where they only hire such good doctors for money? And will a bad doctor treat me normally just because I pay him? And in general, aren’t there good doctors in the district, free clinics, and aren’t there hacks in the expensive, paid clinics? Every question can be answered yes and no. Depending on the context, either answer may be correct.

Returning to the Novosibirsk story, I understand that I am not ready to pillory the pediatrician Kulikova with rusty nails. Everyone knows what miracles our doctors can work. I myself once saw how in an ordinary hospital they assembled the leg of a wounded policeman from many fragments, and then he hardly limped! They can do great healing! If they can make a diagnosis... And if they have medicine. And if there is equipment.

When the doctor has only a fountain pen with him, and the only equipment he has is a “clean spoon”, which I give him so that he can look at my throat, what should I ask of him? He had ten patients before me, and twenty more after me. The local therapist cannot take a cardiogram, will not palpate the intestines and liver, he, in the end, is simply physically unable to spend an hour and a half on me, because then he will not have enough time to bypass his painful area. But this is a common practice - when the doctor has a round for half a day, and then an appointment for half a day, and there are dozens of patients in the clinic, and this clinic is not at all rich in equipment. And he himself receives so little that as soon as the conversation comes about poverty, they immediately remember doctors and teachers.

Of course, a normal doctor still won’t go into the room in dirty shoes and wash his hands before examining a patient, but he still makes a diagnosis, guided by our description. But not everyone can adequately describe their state of health. And especially a four-year-old child. Headache, runny nose, cough, aching joints - we all say the same thing. And most often we get sick with the same thing, some kind of acute respiratory infection. But this diagnosis is made by the doctor almost at random. Like Zhvanetsky: “If the disease is not treated on time, it may go away on its own.” This is what happens most often. But there are also exceptions. Like in Novosibirsk. We can only hope that from now on Kulikov’s pediatrician will “properly” carry out his duties. Moreover, she herself had a son during the trial.