Patient Notification and Cancer in Russia and the Soviet Union

[Michele A Berdy]

My doctor friends tell me that it was policy – and to some extent, for some doctors and institutions, it is still policy – not to tell someone that s/he has a fatal disease because if the person knew s/he’d die – or knew the chances were bad -- the person would lose the will to fight the illness and get better. It was/is also considered “unkind” to “ruin” someone’s last weeks or months with the knowledge of their hopeless situation and imminent death.  Now everyone that I know who has gotten a diagnosis of cancer was told that, and they were told the stage, the chances of survival, and the options for treatment. But a person whose operation was not successful was not told that; nor was she told that she only had a few days or weeks to live. (The doctors did tell her daughter.) 

 

Although it is changing a bit around the edges, it is still a system in which “the doctor knows best” and decides what or what not to tell you. 

 

From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Brian Hayden
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 4:25 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Patient Notification and Cancer in Russia and the Soviet Union

 

Dear SEELANGers,

 

I've heard from a few different sources that in the Soviet Union doctors sometimes (often? almost always?) would not notify the patient if they found cancer. Was this official policy or a professional custom? Did it apply only to cancer, or to other diseases that would likely end up being fatal? What was the exact rationale behind / philosophical underpinning of this move?

 

Sincerely,

 

Brian Hayden

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