European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 22, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Magazine Assembly line surgery soviet doctor mixes capitalism Medicine National geographic his Eves encircled by dark Green stains of Antiseptic solution the Young Man at a Moscow Hospital clutches his skimpy gown walks to the operating table and lies Down. An attendant links the table and its occupant to a moving conveyor Belt flanked by masked surgeons who practice Medicine the Way Ford and general motors build cars. Quot i am Lucky very Lucky to be Here Quot the patient says smiling thinly and gesturing at the surroundings a a gleaming High technology surgical suite at the Moscow research Institute of Eye microsurgery. Amid soft metallic clinks and pneumatic hisses the patient and table creep Forward As do 250,000 other soviet patients each year. To american doctors and patients the term Quot Assembly line Medicine Quot is a stinging rebuke reserved for health care that is coldly impersonal a perhaps even callous and shoddy. But in the soviet unions ossified health care system which is unable to even Supply enough hypodermic Needles Assembly line Eye surgery is a rare technological Triumph. The enormously successful approach has in fact become a Symbol of the Hopes and dreams of Kremlin leaders trying to improve health care and instill principles of capitalism and entrepreneurship in the soviet Economy. Few people in the soviet Union today embody those principles More than or. Svyatoslav Feodorov head of the Eye surgery Institute and Developer of the automated technique. He has built a $75 million a year business Empire based on Assembly line Medicine. It extends across the soviet Union a and beyond. It includes Eye surgery centers in Moscow and nine other cities and two factories that produce and Export microsurgical instruments and artificial lenses. Two More clinics Are under construction. Frodo Rove a 5,000 employees treat about 250,000 patients a year National geographic including about 6,000 foreigners. Quot our surgical Assembly line will Mark the beginning of a medical and technological revolution Quot Feodorov says. Quot Many other countries will eventually adopt our  he says that he expects mass production operations eventually to extend to other forms of surgery including coronary bypass operations. Feodorov s Assembly lines have become a glittering Haven for soviet patients accustomed to brusque care in unkempt hospitals lacking modern equipment. Many patients go to the clinics for radial Kera Toomy a surgical procedure that Feodorov developed to treat myopia or nearsightedness. Others go for treatment of cataracts. Although radial Kera Toomy is performed widely in the United states and other Western countries some american ophthalmologists still have reservations about its effectiveness. On the clinics conveyor belts the operation takes less than 10 minutes. Each surgeon performs one specific function before the Assembly line moves  who it ii it hic above patients Are lined up to move through various stages of Eye surgery at a Moscow clinic. Left less experienced doctors perform routine tasks at the Start of the surgery line. Carrying the patient to the next surgeon the doctors communicate with each other through tiny headsets and microphones. Feodorov cites three major advantages of this team approach surgeons can treat five times As Many patients As they could working alone the technique gives patients Access to the Best surgeons a whose Success rates Feodorov says average five times better than those for conventional russian Eye surgery and Assembly line surgery costs half As much As conventional surgery. Dollars Marks pounds and other hard currency from foreign patients and exports of instruments produced in Feodorov s factories have helped Supply the Eye clinics with computers and other modern equipment. Hard currency from outside the country now is bankrolling ambitious new efforts to bring More foreign patients to the soviets mass produced Medicine late in 1989 the Institute opened its first floating surgical Assembly line a a $64 million Hospital ship that will cruise the persian Gulf and Mediterranean. The ship s 18 surgeons will perform 1,500 operations a month. The technique also is taking to the skies in a giant cargo plane converted into a flying Hospital. Under construction outside Moscow is a 250-bed clinic and hotel Complex where Feodorov expects to treat 20,000 foreign patients a year by 1992. The Empire is so firmly based on capitalist principles of incentive and profit that Fortune Magazine recently profiled Feodorov As one of the world s most successful physician entrepreneurs. His doctors and nurses Are part owners of the clinics they Are Well paid by soviet standards and share the clinics income receiving a Bonus for each successful operation. A surgeon s pay varies with the number of successful operations but the average is $20,000 a year. That fee contrasts sharply with the state run healthcare system under which physicians May be paid the equivalent of $4,000 a year a less than the average soviet factory worker or farmhand. Tuesday May 22, 1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 13