Spring 2000

Sioux Falls Physician Serves in Ukraine

There are many opportunities in parts of the world less fortunate than ours for physicians to volunteer their time and skills. One such place is the Republic of Ukraine, formerly part of the Soviet Union. For the past four years, Janet Lindemann, M.D., a family physician in Sioux Falls and Associate Professor in the USD School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine, has been involved in Ukraine serving as a consultant for medical clinic and counseling services.

Health care in Ukraine is very different from that of the United States. All of the 15 republics which formerly made up the Soviet Union shared a similar system of Soviet medicine, a grim system of substandard equipment, erratic medicine supplies, authoritarian physicians and little access to international medical developments. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, health care in Ukraine has deteriorated further due to a lack of sufficient financial infrastructure. In addition, the devastating nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 continues to adversely affect the lives of Eastern Europeans both medically and psychologically.

In her role as medical advisor for a church-related organization, WELS Lutherans for Life, Lindemann assists in providing supplies and training for a mobile pediatric clinic that travels thoughout western Ukraine. What began as a Chernobyl relief effort, is now a public health program aimed at identifying major health issues and providing public education. A high rate of iron deficiency anemia, for example, due to poor nutrition is aggravated by Ukrainian mothers’ reluctance to breast-feed their infants based upon an unfounded fear that the human milk contains nuclear contamination. "My first challenge on this issue," says Lindemann, "has been to inform the pediatricians that research has shown no contamination effects in breast milk." She made a trip to Ukraine in 1999 for the purpose of training Ukrainian physicians about this and other pediatric issues.

"Life is very difficult in Ukraine. Rates of alcoholism and depression are very high. Physicians there are government employees and many have not been paid a salary in more than two years. Yet, there is a love of life and desire to improve that warms the heart. Whenever I feel life is too challenging, I have only to think about life in Ukraine and I return to a feeling of contentment."

Lindemann plans to continue her involvement in Ukraine, where, as in other former Soviet republics, they have begun to adapt their medical education and service systems to a more westernized system. On a recent visit, she was asked to explain patient-centered care and family practice, two medical service concepts that are beginning to get attention in Eastern Europe.