>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 12/18/00 08:30PM >>>
Are post-Soviet Russian doctors growing potatoes for survival better
doctors now than they used to be, because they are now intimately
acquainted with the sort of "manual labor" that must have been
foreign to them in the Soviet past?
(((((((((((
CB: Actually, doctors are manual laborers. They work with their hands a lot.
Russia has gone in the opposite direction - socialism to capitalism -than what I was thinking about - capitalism to socialism. So, the Russian doctors are not participating in a planned project to reduce the old antagonism between mental and physical labor, but as an accident and harsh side effect of the chaotic capitalist market there now. Better this were part of a barefoot doctors type effort.
As to whether they are better doctors is an empirical question. It is possible, but I have no direct evidence. What do the Russian doctors say ? Of course , the situation is not controlled for the fact that their medical supplies are worse.