Can anyone tell me if they had similar experiences with scheduling a medical exam in any of the 3 approved by US consulate clinics:

My fiancée has been trying to reach them for a week and all she gets either busy, no pickup or once she got someone on the phone and was told to call after 5pm.

She saying she will pretty much will have to travel to Moscow next week to schedule the date!

Anybody have any experiences with this situation?
Can she just walk in from the street and have the medical that very day or they have to schedule her in advance?
May be someone have other phone numbers that the medical centers can be reached other than the ones posted at US Embassy.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Same thing happened to my fiancee. She just kept calling and finally got through to IOM.

Some people have better luck trying to call in the morning right after the clinics start working.
Hope it works soon!
Good luck!

Tasha

Ira tried calling 10 times a day for a week before finally getting through to somebody. I though it was crazy, but Ira seemed unperturbed.

Good luck,

Z

Were you like, "why the hell are you calling so much?" And she said, "It's Russia."???

On her part, you're right. On my part I was doing a bit more freaking out.

"The interview is only a month away!"
"Call every 5 minutes if you have to."
"Call all three clinics."
"It's essential that you get through to those people. I'm sure the embassy won't understand if you tell them the clinic wouldn't pick up the phone!"
"Why the hell doesn't anybody know how to do business properly in Russia?"
"This is the fallout from Communism where everybody got paid regardless of service level!"
"This is utter garbage."
"They need to pick up the phone to make money!"
"I'm going to spend today not answering the phone for my clients. Let's see how many accounts I'll lose today."



Z

you know it's bad when you start saying "it's russia" yourself.

I take it from the macro to the micro. Trying to explain to my friend why Nadya wouldn't go get her police certificate, even though it could possibly take 30 or more days: "It's Nadya."

I think Alla & Nadya must know each other and do these things to "play" with us. I going to start saying, "Это Алла!" the next time she delays yet another task.

LOL! "Это не Россия. Это Надя." Oh I can't wait to use this.

Это не только Алла и Надя. Это русские. Ж)

Правда!

Yeah but that's not near as fun.

When my wife first called AO Meditsina, they told her to call back in a few weeks. It was necessary to have the exam scheduled in advance.

IOM, often called MOM (since that is the Russian acronym) is a clinic that gives poor service too often. My wife (fiance) then had a terrible experience there back in 2005. The only advantage of MOM is that it might be $5 cheaper. The disadvantages can fill a substantial list.

2005 was three years ago... IOM seems to have cleaned up their act.

My fiancee did her medical just 4 days ago, and she had no issues and said that the doctors were very friendly. I was nervous about it as well, but it looks as though eekee is correct, they have cleaned up their act.

My wife and her daughter had their medical in MOM in 2006 and had no problems at all. Most reports lately have been positive. I guess there were a few isolated problems several years ago that have since been taken care of. The advantage of MOM is same day results.

I remember that one poster was shocked that his girl had to expose certain parts of her body for the medical. Come on, it's a medical exam. What did they expect?

I agree, my fiancee (who had her medical at MOM a week ago) said it was a normal doctors visit, and they were friendly. No wierd stuff at all.

Well...if every woman gets the same exam...I agree with you. But if certain women get pelvic and breast exams while most do not, then I have issues with that.

From following the post med exam reports, the women do not have pelvic or breast exams and the worst that happens is that they may be required to remove their blouse momentarily. So...anything beyond this is questionable.

From the report of one incident, things went well beyond a routine exam. Just from that alone, I will not allow my wife to go to MOM...I just don't need one for thing to worry about.

For some reason, I had always assumed that a pelvic and breast exam were a part of the medical. It's something that I've been getting every year since I was 16 years old; I probably wouldn't even notice that it was strange or weird.

You would think it weird if 4 or 5 male staffers were watching the exam and shouting out inappropriate and crude comments. Yes?

Of course. but I think because we haven't heard any such reports for years, they fired the offending staffers. obviously, it's very bad for their lucrative consulate business if they have a reputation for that kind of thing.

I imagine that as soon as there were reports of that nature, the consulate laid down the law.

You are probably right...but will I trust a place that allowed that to happen just once? NO!

good luck to you guys in your medical exam.

Having seen how simple posts here morph, it would not surprise me one bit that perhaps a simple breast exam turned into a near rape.

Topics here morph, details usually don't.

I agree with Mox. We change topics, but details don't morph or become exaggerated.

One thing I thought of--whenever I've gone to any kind of male doctor in the US, I always have either my mom, stepmom, or a female nurse in the room with me. It's US law. Do you think it would be possible for your ladies to request a female nurse be present during their exam, to safeguard against all of this awful stuff?

The U.S. law that you're talking about is a patient's right to have someone of the same sex present and I believe it's a state law, not a federal law. (One of you lawyers... ?) Either way, do you really think having a female employee of the clinic present in Russia is going to guard a female there the way it would here?

On thing you don't expect is to have nonmedical objects inserted into private parts with several men looking on!

When my fiancee ended up having to go there for her medical, I read every thing on IOM/MOM here on VJ and all the links that those threads generated. I never read anything about rape. Did that happen to your lady? Because I just reread and couldnt find anywhere where a lady had anything like that done. One poster was claiming harassment similar to that, but the guy later retracted his claims when he found out that the doctor who examined his lady was a woman. It wouldnt surprise me that there was some gawking and oogling going on in some of the cases, but that is a far cry from rape/rape with an instrument.

At her K1 physical in 2005. I've written about it before, not so graphically. Once I did mention "rape by instrumentation" which apparently is a legal term I don't quite understand, and got criticized here for it.

Needless to say, she did not return to AOM for her K3 physical.

We have good reason not to be fond of MOM.

I am surprised you didnt go to moscow and burn that place to the ground with the offending individuals inside. Thats what I would have done.

Well, we aren't going to burn the place down.

But I will continue to warn people away from MOM. Really, I can't see why the consulate continues to accept their work. Ours has not been the only plausible complaint of abuse coming from MOM. But MOM is pretty chummy with the Russian government and that may help protect them.

I don't see why an American man would want to send a wife or fiance to MOM. though. To save $5? Does recidivism sometimes occur? Why risk it?

The second time around, we used AOMeditsina. My wife was pleased to report that no one there asked her to take off her clothes. I might have helped that I was sitting outside of the examining rooms that time, but I don't think so. I think AOMeditsina genuinely strives to do good medical work, although they also might be in it for the money a bit too much. They made my wife get an unnecessary vaccination and, along the way, relieved us of an extra $50 or so. I wrote about that episode here before and did complain to the consultate. They fixed that one, apparently, based on more recent posts about AOMeditsina experiences.

I continue, in spite of an experience not 100% positive, to recommend AOMeditsina.

OK, here is my question. I thought the exam involved tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea. I have always thought that people tested for these in a way that involves a gynecological exam, not a blood test. Do they show up in the blood test? I thought that since they were bacterial infections they wouldn't, but I'm not a doctor and don't know much about medicine.

I didn't think they tested for those, but if they did, yeah, they'd have to "take a look." (Or so I thought too.)



As far as which clinic to go to, there's one that could charge you extra money for stuff you don't need and the other one could possibly harass/abuse you?

What ever happened to the days of "I'm the one paying you.... do what I say." Sure, then they're not going to sign the required documents, but that's why there's another clinic. And another. People here in the States do that alot too. They forget that their doctor and medical staff are working for them. There's not too much disagreement with doctors and nurses here. Usually just complaining after the fact.

Remember, going to the doctor is no different than going to Jiffy Lube. You're going there to get a service performed and your equipment checked. If they give you any hassle, either go to the dealer or do it yourself.

They're on the list of things that would make you fail a medical.

No STD tests for my wife, either, except for HIV. So the outrageous aspects of my wife's examination cannot be dismissed as a "misunderstanding".

Why are they on the list (along with syphilis and some things that I've never heard of) if they don't test for them?

Let me correct myself: apparently they also tested for syphilis with the blood draw they used for the HIV test. As for the various other conditions you refer to -- I cannot comment.

I wanted her to go to AOM, but neither they or Filitov would pick up the phone. She called all day, every day for about 4 days and finally decided to try MOM/IOM and they picked up the phone.

According to wikipedia they can test your pee for gonorrhea/chlamydia as well. Good to know.

The clap disease-chlamydia test used to be be VERY unpleasant, for men anyway. Now they can test with urine sample. Thank you modern medicine!

The medical exam is an issue for me and I resent our embassy allowing such nonsense to occur under it's oversight. Abuse and rip-offs and we have to pay for such crap.

There needs to be a better way...but there's so much corruption and bribery and mafia influence in Russia...especially Moscow, that there seems no better way except to maybe add more clinic choices than 3 or 4.

Regarding MOM, I understand they offer same day results and, unfortunately, I think many folks who want to save money by limiting their stay in Moscow choose to use MOM for that reason alone. I have already decided we will not use MOM. If there were no choice, I pay a female body guard to go along.

Not so pleasant for women either, but unfortunately the, uh, technique is still a part of the exam for other things.

Yes...don't envy you.

My Alla is not looking forward to that forthcoming procedure.

There is always one bad case in any operation. You've also done a great job of spreading the negative word here on VJ.
Unfortunately many others including myself had the experience at MOM described below:

And if it was only a $5 savings it would make no difference to me. But when you are on budget, limiting the amount of days you have to be in Moscow is crucial. For us it was a better calculated risk to stay less in Moscow, a savings of several hundreds of dollars and be subject to a 1 in 100,000 or chance of getting the rape with an instrument scenario. Also back in 2004 no reports of "rape" were mention regarding any clinic in Moscow here on VJ.

As for my wife, her checkup was typical. A chest x-ray was as sexual as it got.

Mine/our experience at MOM in 2006 was fine as well.

For some it's about money and for some it's about other things...like love and vigilance for our wives and children. We all choose our way. I choose love and I'm not willing to accept even a 1 in 1,000,000 level of risk when it comes to my wife's safety and well-being.

It won't sooth me at all to know I saved $150 at my wife's expense. If abuse occurs, there's no going back. Satellite, I have a feeling you'd make your wife walk down a dark alley at midnight to save a $1.

I hear you (Satellite) complaining that someone reported abuse at MOM (just as he should). Wow...you only want to hear positive reports on the forum. That's funny coming from you. Or are you challenging the story's truthfulness?

For those who used MOM, I am happy it worked out for you and I don't fault the decision. In some cases it seems there was little else to do. If other clinics won't answer the phone, that limits choices. I would suggest that people write the Embassy and tell them about their phone problem with the clinics and maybe things will change.

I hear the stories about men in Russia, and I heed the call to be careful.

IT IS RUSSIA!

Is it really necessary to diss the entire population of Russian men? I had maybe 3 bad experiences in over 12 months with men there, and none of them were really anything major and could happen in any large city.