I received an email from a Russian patient questioning my qualifications and stating that western nurses and doctors either lie or are completely incompetent. Words such as "I'm full of shit" were among the more polite descriptions. I'm curious about the treatment the Russians give their patients.

The problem is my patient broke his right clavicle, a simple break in the center. As far as I've always known simple breaks like these are treated conservatively ie No Surgery. This patient then went back to Russia and his doctors claim he should have had surgery, even though the orthopaedic surgeon here where I am did not.

In twelve years I've never seen a broken clavicle operated on. Not only this, but this patient is the second Russian patient with a broken clavicle and the previous patient's doctor back in Russia said the same thing, that he should have had surgery.

Now I'm not trying to be anti-russian, but I've had Russian patients freely admit that their own healthcare is rubbish and that for $50 you can get most doctors to write a medical note/prescription for nearly anything you want. I didn't believe this until I saw some of the doctors notes claiming some utterly bizarre descriptions of completely made up illnesses, again which the patients admit are made up.

I know we're not perfect over here in the west, but if I'm ever in Russia and feel ill, I'll happily mortgage the house to get medivacced out of there rather than go to one of their hospitals. I guess that's why London hospitals (private ones) are full of sick wealthy Russians.

Enough bad mouthing, I am curious, are there any Russians out there who can tell me how they treat a simple fractured clavice.

After being an OR nurse for 28 years and doing mostly orthopaedic surgery for many of those years, a fractured clavicle is only repaired when comminuted, (shattered) and I think theala is correct in thinking the Russian doc only wanted a fat fee. Here in Washington state, there is a huge population of Russian immigrants and they all seem absolutely thrilled with the healthcare here.