OPEN WORLD PROGRAM IN GRANTS PASS OCTOBER 2007  see photos below

Four health-care leaders from our sister city, Rubtsovsk, were selected to visit Grants Pass as part of the Open World Leadership Program October 6-14. Last October 2006, we hosted a social services delegation for the Open World Program, which was quite successful. 

We were encouraged to apply again, and were very happy that we could provide this opportunity for four more people from our sister city. Exchange participants were all in their early 40’s, are leaders in their organizations, and had never traveled to the U.S. before. Open World seeks to give participants new strategies for strengthening health-care practices and delivery. Delegates were able to observe the mix of private, public, and non-profit health-care providers in our community.  

President Kitty Waud and Vice-President Rita Turek organized the week-long program for the delegation.  Both Kitty and Rita are nurses, and both were part of a medical delegation to Rubtsovsk in 2004.

Delegates met with health-care professionals in a variety of locations during the week.  They toured Three Rivers Community Hospital, and met with staff in the Cancer Center, Infusion Center, and Home Health Care Services.  In Grants Pass, they also had meetings at the Grants Pass Clinic, the Grants Pass Surgery Center, and the Josephine County Health Department.  Kitty and Rita also arranged visits to the Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford and the Siskiyou Community Health Center in Cave Junction. Delegates visited a class session at the Rogue Community College School of Nursing.

The delegates stayed with local host families and had opportunities to visit some local schools and  businesses, go to the coast and the redwoods, and do and see whatever more could be squeezed into a short eight-day visit.

Thursday evening, October 11, was an opportunity for the community to meet the delegates. We held a no-host dinner at JJ North’s at 5:30 for sister city members and friends. 

The four delegates were as follows:

Irina Abramova is the Deputy Head of the Rubtsovsk City Medical Administration.  She supervises municipal health-care institutions.  She also administers implementation of new technologies and does short and long-term planning for the Department of Health Care. Irina hoped to gain knowledge and experience about training medical personnel and about providing support and education groups for various at-risk groups.

Vadim Mirko is a Surgeon-Oncologist at the Rubtsovsk Oncology Dispensary.  He remembers meeting the Grants Pass medical delegation when they visited his clinic in 2004.  His main goal is to prevent cancer, and to treat diagnosed cancers.  In addition to performing surgeries, he writes and lectures on cancer prevention and healthy life styles, as well as consulting with other medical facilities in Rubtsovsk. Vadim wanted to learn about the our health care system and about various surgical methods used here.  He strongly believes he will be able to apply new information and knowledge in his professional activities.

Tamara Sakhabutdinova is the Information Bibliographic Department Head of the Municipal Library Information System.  She coordinates all the informational programs of the library, takes part in conferences and seminars related to healthy lifestyle promotion, and she creates databases on health, sports, social and legal issues.  She also devises digests, lectures, and programs that aim at drug and alcohol abuse prevention among children and young people.  She runs health education programs for prospective mothers, for younger girls, and for disabled people. In the U.S., Tamara was interested in learning about the public health system and how it works with other institutions in the community. 

Tatyana Tsareva is the Head Nurse at City Hospital #3.  She also serves as the Rubtsovsk Head of the Altai (state) Professional Association of Russian Nurses, a branch of a national non-government organization.  In both her paid and volunteer work, she tries to implement professional nursing standards and to create conditions to raise the prestige of the nursing profession and to promote leadership skills of nurses. Tatyana hoped to gain knowledge about healthy life style promotion, the life of average Americans, and the work of non-government organizations.

Delegates were accompanied by an Open World bi-lingual facilitator from Russia, Yelizaveta Pyanzina.  In addition, Marina Kaiser Rhodes again provided interpretation at all meetings and presentations during the week.

-text contributed by Nancy Hitchcock, photos below by Ruth Pepple, Rita Turek and others

corrections or updates? email davidnjudy@charter.net

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