The 8 panel doctor review was PAINLESS.
We walked into a 1950’s furniture styled library/conference room with medium brown paneling and oak flooring. A 120” oval oak table with eight ladder style matching green cushioned chairs were in the middle of the room. The floor had two long 4 ft wide very worn gold runners that ran the length of the room. The ceiling height was 12 feet high with a built in wall cabinet along the one long side of the rectangular shaped room. Across from the cabinet was a full panel of windows covered in green draperies. In front of the windows were two oversized mustard yellow leather covered sofas. This is where we sat and Sveta sat in a chair facing us just slightly away from the table.
The “review” consisted of six doctors entering the room one after another to sit at the big table and ask us questions. When we entered the room there were already two doctors at the table - doctor of infectious diseases and the TB specialist. As only God would plan, the first doctor (infectious disease) shares the EXACT same birthdate as me…! Amazing. This was the first thing that she said to us… good start! She asked basic questions about immunizations that we had received and diseases that we had contracted. The standard question, “Have you traveled to a tropical country” was asked. She was very nice and polite. While she was asking questions, Kenny pulled out our laptop with the external DVD reader and loaded our chest xrays in for the other doctor to look at. When Doctor #1 finished with her questions which we had to answer for ourselves, the second doctor asked a couple of questions after reviewing the x-rays. She asked us twice if we smoked. When we said, “no.” She said, “Really?” Not because of our x-rays - but there is such a high rate of smoking in Russia that it is difficult to believe that we did not smoke. We did discuss prevention and all the medical campaign to detour kids from smoking in the US. I guess they try to do that here, but it is not effective.
Both doctors left and the neurologist came into the room. This female neurologist was also a certified psychiatrist. She asked us each to tell what our occupation was and a little bit about the child we are adopting. This led to a discussion about “big families” and “why” we wanted more children, especially a child with down syndrome. She asked us if we understood the medical need that Julianna would have. She also asked us the access we had to the necessary resources. We were able to rattle off the whole scope of specialists that Julianna will be seeing, not to mention the proximity that we have to the Penn State Hershey Medical Children’s Hospital. This seemed to satisfy her. She smiled affectionately and said “Good luck.”
The next doctor was an onocologist. She asked us questions about cancer, melanoma, and surgeries. She like the others wrote volumes about our short answers.
The next doctor asked us a couple of questions. I thought she was the psychiatrist…Sveta said she was a surgeon. She wanted to know if we had any psychiatric issues in our family. We both said “no.” Later, we laughed as we have joked in the past about Kenny’s brother Frankie needing a psychiatric help!
The last doctor that we saw was a general practitioner. She asked all the same questions that the others asked. She also looked at the x-rays. Then, Kenny and I had to step behind a folding screen at the end of the room and remove our shirts. She listened to our lungs and heart along with looking at our ankles and stomachs. This doctor did take our blood pressure. The general practitioner was with us about 10 minutes total.
After this we exited the room and signed contracts with the clinic. Basically they said we have health care coverage for 3 months in Moscow and that the fee was 21,000 rubles each or $700. We signed and paid!
The whole ordeal lasted less than 90 minutes and was absolutely painless. I did learn that the eighth doctor reviewed all of our lab work that we brought with us in some other part of the hospital and signed off on them. The chief doctor signed and stamped our form giving us two copies to present to the judge on Thursday. The doctors actually came back from their vacation today to do this for us and another couple from Ireland who were there when we were there. It was a positive experience.
We walked into a 1950’s furniture styled library/conference room with medium brown paneling and oak flooring. A 120” oval oak table with eight ladder style matching green cushioned chairs were in the middle of the room. The floor had two long 4 ft wide very worn gold runners that ran the length of the room. The ceiling height was 12 feet high with a built in wall cabinet along the one long side of the rectangular shaped room. Across from the cabinet was a full panel of windows covered in green draperies. In front of the windows were two oversized mustard yellow leather covered sofas. This is where we sat and Sveta sat in a chair facing us just slightly away from the table.
The “review” consisted of six doctors entering the room one after another to sit at the big table and ask us questions. When we entered the room there were already two doctors at the table - doctor of infectious diseases and the TB specialist. As only God would plan, the first doctor (infectious disease) shares the EXACT same birthdate as me…! Amazing. This was the first thing that she said to us… good start! She asked basic questions about immunizations that we had received and diseases that we had contracted. The standard question, “Have you traveled to a tropical country” was asked. She was very nice and polite. While she was asking questions, Kenny pulled out our laptop with the external DVD reader and loaded our chest xrays in for the other doctor to look at. When Doctor #1 finished with her questions which we had to answer for ourselves, the second doctor asked a couple of questions after reviewing the x-rays. She asked us twice if we smoked. When we said, “no.” She said, “Really?” Not because of our x-rays - but there is such a high rate of smoking in Russia that it is difficult to believe that we did not smoke. We did discuss prevention and all the medical campaign to detour kids from smoking in the US. I guess they try to do that here, but it is not effective.
Both doctors left and the neurologist came into the room. This female neurologist was also a certified psychiatrist. She asked us each to tell what our occupation was and a little bit about the child we are adopting. This led to a discussion about “big families” and “why” we wanted more children, especially a child with down syndrome. She asked us if we understood the medical need that Julianna would have. She also asked us the access we had to the necessary resources. We were able to rattle off the whole scope of specialists that Julianna will be seeing, not to mention the proximity that we have to the Penn State Hershey Medical Children’s Hospital. This seemed to satisfy her. She smiled affectionately and said “Good luck.”
The next doctor was an onocologist. She asked us questions about cancer, melanoma, and surgeries. She like the others wrote volumes about our short answers.
The next doctor asked us a couple of questions. I thought she was the psychiatrist…Sveta said she was a surgeon. She wanted to know if we had any psychiatric issues in our family. We both said “no.” Later, we laughed as we have joked in the past about Kenny’s brother Frankie needing a psychiatric help!
The last doctor that we saw was a general practitioner. She asked all the same questions that the others asked. She also looked at the x-rays. Then, Kenny and I had to step behind a folding screen at the end of the room and remove our shirts. She listened to our lungs and heart along with looking at our ankles and stomachs. This doctor did take our blood pressure. The general practitioner was with us about 10 minutes total.
After this we exited the room and signed contracts with the clinic. Basically they said we have health care coverage for 3 months in Moscow and that the fee was 21,000 rubles each or $700. We signed and paid!
The whole ordeal lasted less than 90 minutes and was absolutely painless. I did learn that the eighth doctor reviewed all of our lab work that we brought with us in some other part of the hospital and signed off on them. The chief doctor signed and stamped our form giving us two copies to present to the judge on Thursday. The doctors actually came back from their vacation today to do this for us and another couple from Ireland who were there when we were there. It was a positive experience.