My wife teaches English as a second language, and one of her Russian-speaking students was trained as a doctor in the former USSR. It has been interesting to hear about her observations on #Sovietmedicine - our system in the US is badly broken, but that sounds pretty grim./1 
Despite propaganda posters like this one about "Glory to the medical profession", most Soviet physicians (>80%) were women, largely because being a physician was a poorly paid, low prestige profession in the USSR, as summarized in this 1976 @nytimes article./2
The low status for doctors actually continues today in modern Russia, in which physicians are paid less than fast food workers. When I have lectured in Russia, hematologists have shared with me that they have 2nd jobs as taxi drivers, shop clerks, etc. /3 themoscowtimes.com/2017/04/07/rus…
There were mandatory courses in medical school on atheism. Earlier, the study of lysenkoism was also mandated; Trofim Lysenko was a scary dude who tried to subjugate biology to ideology. Until 1965, it was illegal to dissent with his pseudo-scientific views such as Lamarckism./4
Sometimes classes were cancelled so medical students could be bused out to work in collectivist fields, especially during harvest time when there was a worker shortage. Domestic work also piled on to the "woman of the house", including doctors, despite official gender equality./5
The allopathic medical profession competed against herbalists and purveyors of traditional remedies. This was apparently common enough that Soviet propaganda was published warning against such healers./6
It seems #DoctorZhivago was an anomaly. Or maybe not. An interesting history./7End
