"Doctors cannot be" educators "

In the spring of 2021, Women's Health Clinic appeared in St. Petersburg. Now customers from the USA and Belgium come to the reception, and the founders plan to open a branch on Bali.

Paper spoke with the chief physician and general director of W Clinic Daria and Evgeny Burmakin. They told how environmentally friendly management works, whether family relations affect the common business, why in the clinic organized a library for patients and how the work of W Clinic has changed after February 24 - the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine.

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- How did you have the idea to create W Clinic?

Evgeny: My wife and I have long thought to open a common cause. Before W Clinic, I worked as a public relations specialist in an IT company, and Dasha was a doctor in one of the St. Petersburg clinics. Our first idea was a medical startup - the cabinets distributed in St. Petersburg for private medical practice. Like Airbnb, only for doctors. It turned out that it is impossible to realize the idea because of Russian legislation.

Daria: In Russia, the doctor receives a license only for a specific place with the repair licensed by Rospotrebnadzor. This was probably done in favor of the patient, so that if he was provided with poor -quality services, he knew where to go. But this approach categorically cuts off the ability to conduct private practice.

E: Therefore, we decided to open our own clinic with environmentally friendly management, evidence-based medicine and Black Jack. Dasha took up the role of the chief physician and a leading specialist, and I am the role of the general director and the head of the marketing department.

- And what are you investing in the concept of "environmentally friendly management"?

E: This is a control system where the doctor does not chase commercial indicators. Where he has only one task - to help the patient. Most private clinics form a bar for the doctor - the profit rate that the client should bring. Such doctors usually have a low cost of admission, because they receive additional 30 % for the appointment of unnecessary tests or consultations with colleagues.

D: Another extreme is a clinic where there is no profit plan, but the team is terrifying. I worked in a place where, while I was on vacation, another doctor took my pregnant patients. It turned out, while I am not, the doctor tells women that it is impossible to stroke the stomach, because because of this there is a tone of the uterus and a miscarriage may happen. Most often, such teams have several adequate doctors who, for the good of the patient, redirect him to other clinics - to doctors who will really help him.

E : Women's health requires an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore, we decided to create a team where colleagues will trust each other and work in a bunch. Usually doctors communicate through a patient’s card - this is ineffective. Effectively get together and say: “I have a difficult case. Let's look at. What do you think? " This is energy -consuming and requires empathy between employees. We create a condition for this.

- Another basic principle of your clinic is an evidence -based approach. What does it mean?

E: Let's start with the definition. Proceeding medicine involves the meaningful and conscientious use of research results. For each appointment and diagnosis, the doctor should have a scientific base that justifies his decision. On this item, we are very strictly selected by personnel and, when hiring for a job, we first not only study the documents, but also analyze medical posts in the blogs of candidates. Each of our specialists is a public person and leads at least Instagram. We look at what he writes, understand his values, check whether he puts a scientific approach above his personal experience.

D: Usually, when hiring in other clinics, you are asking for documents from the university - this is enough. At one of the previous works, where I got a gynecologist, I was simply asked at the end of the interview: "Are you definitely a good doctor?" All our doctors undergo an oral exam: we specially jump from the topic on the topic to understand how competent is the doctor.

- There is a stereotype that doctors face burnout more often than specialists from other spheres. How do you support your employees?

D: The doctor who has lost motivation, even with high competence, will not be able to help the patient. Understanding this, we are conducting “Balints groups” - collective psychotherapy sessions for doctors. This helps to control the corporate climate and notice in time if the doctor rolls into apathy.

E: We also have a system of individual development of the potential of a doctor. We regularly ask a person with a list of advanced training that are interesting to him, and pay classes in whole or in part. Our doctors ripen in much the same way as programmers: at first they go through a long and difficult learning process, then practice and additional education.

D: Doctors in Russia do not teach communications and empathy as they do abroad. Moreover, they read morality that "you will worry about everyone, you will quickly burn out." But this is not so. Studies show that the empathic doctor is less likely to fade.

E: Even at the interview, it is important for me to understand the long -term motivation of the doctor. The questions “who do you see yourself in 5 years?”, “Are you an operating specialist or outpatient clinic?”, “What do you want?” At the interview of medical workers - not rhetorical. Responding to them, a person immediately ignites and feels that they believe here. And we, in turn, check the personal potential of doctors in order to invest in it in the future. Of course, there is always a risk that a doctor can leave and carry with him knowledge, part of his own brand, and some patients. But here, as in any business, you either trust or not.

- How many specialists work in W Clinic?

E: 24 doctors-most of them are gynecologists, but there are also endocrinologists, urologists, gastroenterologists, ultrasound specialists, therapists and psychotherapists. We went beyond the “Women's Clinic” thanks to the mouth. They are sent to us their husbands and brothers, for example. When a woman understands that in our clinic she is cool and great, she asks: "Do you have a urologist?" We have it.

- You opened in the Pandemia of Coronavirus. Did this complicate this task?

E: In my opinion, medicine is the only sphere where the Covid-19 helped more than he harmed. All precautions that were introduced, perhaps with the exception of masks, were introduced in medical institutions. In addition, during the pandemic, people isolated from vacation and most entertainment decided to invest in their health - this became an help. The business immediately began to pay off, from the very first month.

- Your clinic is a family business. How do relations affect work?

E: 12 years of marriage help to share work and personal life. We have two children and a dog - of course, it is not easy. But thanks to business, a sudden unity came to the family. Working with his shoulder to the shoulder, and not in different offices, we see how each one is investing, and each of us gets tired. This gives more resource to support at a difficult moment.

D: When the founder of the clinic is your husband, you do not need to defend an opinion with a battle and explain once again why it is necessary to save exactly the other, and not why it is impossible to save here. Eugene trusts me, and I. And we really do not have a reserve airfield. There is an understanding that we are alone. The risk that two family members will be left without a source of income is great to motivate!

- In W Clinic, a very pleasant interior, not like a regular clinic. How did you work on it?

E: We reacted to the arrangement of the clinic as a user interface. When the designer creates a site, he thinks out the experience of a person, predicts his fears. Our main task was so that a person would not strain for one hour - so many reception lasts. When you go to the gynecologist’s office, the doctor closes the door to the key. Therefore, there is a soothing inscription on the door: "We must close the door." On the scales, we left the sticker "everything that was in W Clinic remains in W Clinic." This is about privacy. The air conditioner says: “It is uncomfortable? Do not be silent. " Only in comfort does a person begin to take care of his health.

E: But we cannot realize something. For example, in Italy, we saw that the entrance to the building is often decorated with flowers. Why is it impossible for us? Because we immediately stole a flower with us.

D: Stole a bush! An evergreen boxwood, which we dropped before entering the clinic. He was simply gently dug up a shovel along the contour, laid and carried away. Our patient promised to see our bush at the local thief of flowers, but, unfortunately, did not find anything.

- W Clinic is an objectively expensive clinic for St. Petersburg. How did you form prices and how do you argue?

E: From the very beginning, we knew that our product would not be cheap. Now one hour of consultation with a gynecologist costs 4200 rubles. In other city clinics, 2000–2500 rubles will cost half an hour. There is an ideology of slow businesses. We are for a slow quality appointment, during which the doctor closes all the patient's questions.

D: In 30 minutes, you are in a hurry and a doctor is in a hurry - so that it does not always have time to fill out your card. Also, a standard 30-minute technique implies that another one will need. In our cases, 80 % of the consultations end at one reception - we manage to close all issues.

E: We are not afraid that people will come once and disappear. Petersburg is actually a city in which word of mouth works well. In it, people with similar values ​​use similar products.

- You call yourself an inclusive and tolerant clinic. What are these qualities manifested?

E: We are a very small business. Everyone does not care about us, so we do not have self -censorship. It’s not our business, what faith our clients adhere to, what sexual orientation they have. We believe that medicine should be the most tolerant and non -price phenomenon. Even priests can be less tolerant than doctors.

D: The doctor should not care who is in front of him. His task is to help, everything else is secondary. Gynecology is such a branch of medicine in which patients initially come with a lot of fear, distrust and fears. If a person condemns a person because he is an unconventional orientation, then imagine stress when the same person comes to the gynecologist? Even if you put back in the direction of LGBT, every woman had a doctor who condemned tattoos, an early beginning of sexual activity, the number of partners, an intimate haircut - anything. This should not be, doctors cannot be “educators”. A person comes with health questions, and you must answer him strictly for health. Talk in detail about what is happening to him and what treatment options are.

- And what does your marketing are based on ?

E: In the positioning center is not a loud name of the clinic, but the names of the doctors who work in it. A person goes to a person, to the one to whom he trusts. Therefore, all our doctors write posts to the clinic account , and I determine the strategy where we are moving. We have one common SMM specialist, and each doctor has its own SMM mentor. On Instagram, we organically, without attracting advertising, gained almost 10 thousand subscribers and turned an account into a community about women's health. As a reference, we use the Cuprum account, we try not only to write about medicine, but also to engage in a sex interval.

- How did your business affect the military operations in Ukraine?

E: Until February 24, paper for ultrasound cost 800 rubles per skeleton, and now it costs 4 thousand rubles, and it is not the fact that Sony will generally bring it to Russia. Under a big question, now the Gardasil vaccine from the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer. The vaccine is sold in the United States, it is three -component - it is done for six months. A few months later, it will increase in price one more percent, so we instantly left the post in our social networks. They invited customers to buy more vaccines now and leave in our refrigerator for storage.

D: Patients also come to our aid. My client, who works in the office of the office office, even before the paper deficit, hastened to warn us about him. And other patients suggested not printing their conclusions, but to send electronic copies to the mail. When everything is bad, you find good people and hold on to them.

E: We reciprocate: do not raise the price of reception at the expense of micro -study. Microemiafect in such "existing circumstances" - steers! We optimize the costs of everything that does not concern the medical process. We do cheaper where the client will not notice. We don’t take an expensive toilet paper, now we choose not Zielinski & Rozen, but something cheaper. All these little steps will help us become stronger in the future where there will be no war. The bad ends sooner or later.

- What are your plans for the development of the clinic?

E: Until February 24, we planned to open a clinic in Belarus - there was a prospect of working with Poland. Now she is gone. We fix demand from abroad: people from Belgium and the USA come-places where insurance is expensive and there is a language barrier with a doctor. Over the border, reception for them will cost 200–250 euros, we will cost 30–40 euros with us. There is also an idea to open a clinic at Bali.

D: Before the events in Ukraine, we planned to become one of the centers for international clinical research. After February 24, it turned out that Russian clinics could no longer participate in the new research of foreign pharmaceutical companies. It is very important for doctors to be part of the world community, we understand this and will solve the problem.

- How do customers react to your principles and approach to work?

E: People are not anyway to our product. We try to build a community and be honest with it. Recently, we asked patients to pay our services in cash. They did not lie that the terminal had broken, but they simply released a post in social networks that Kesh will now help us more than cashless pay. No one objected, people understood us.

E: We constantly communicate with patients, we take the work of their ideas, answer questions and requests. We note someone in the comments or Direct, we begin to be friends with them and help with what we can. After February 24, we published a post that, perhaps, we will all find ourselves in a vacuum and it is useful for us to get to know each other closer. People in the comments talked about what they were doing, and it turned out to be wildly interesting. We will soon have a corporate party - April 23 to us for a year. One of the patients launched a small homemade bakery, and we ordered her cakes in the form of vulva. The principle of “buy from your own” is also a form of support.

D: We entered the Scientific Library in the clinic. Only those books in which there are information proven by our doctors come here. There are many medical authors, and we do not want our patients to read bullshit. Books can be read while you are waiting for a doctor’s appointment, or take home for a month, as in a real library. Doctors read these books in turn and leave notes in the fields. Just like a hangover prince in a potions in the Harry Potter. These may be indications of inaccuracies, links to proofs or additions.

W Clinic is an inclusive clinic of evidence -based medicine, where doctors build trusting relationships with their patients. You can make an appointment with W Clinic on the site-now in the clinic, in addition to gynecologists, endocrinologists, urologists, therapists, ultrasound specialists, gastroenterologists, cardiologist and psychotherapists work.

The primary consultation of the gynecologist lasts 1 hour and costs 4,200 rubles, and the consultation on pregnancy is 5500 rubles. W Clinic is located on the Black River, at the address: st. Savushkina, 24a.