Jobs: Alex Vodovozov - popularizer of science, medical journalist and blogger

"What is today called time management, known for a long time in the army"

- At what point did you know you wanted to become a doctor?

- It happened in the distant childhood. My parents were engaged in medicine: the Pope - a doctor, and my mother - nurse-technician. Not surprisingly, my toys were glassware and stethoscopes and colorings - anatomical atlas Sinelnikov. Then Dad became medical officer, and my mother worked all the time in the laboratory. I had no one to leave, so sometimes I went with my father on the teachings and saw the unfolding medical center. It was very interesting: I have a little boy, and in front of me all the army, an exciting present. Everything you could touch and feel.

I know that the children of war, seeing the hardships, sometimes impregnated with hostility to the army, but I did not happen: I was located to the army and medicine. Perhaps at that moment I realized that it was mine. Besides, I had no inclination to any humanitarian or technical sciences. They used to say that in this case the place just in medicine. So I was in the Military Medical Academy.

- Training in civil University and the Military Medical Academy is any different?

- I find it difficult to compare, because I have not studied in a civil university. But my son is currently finishing the third year of the medical school, and they definitely require less. We have, in addition to the normal load, was also a military - costumes, learning and anxiety. This component is very disciplined. What is called today time management, The army has long been known.

And yet the army taught me to make decisions. For example, to deploy a medical center, you need to perform a specific set of actions. Take responsibility at the right moment and decide how to proceed with a minimum of information available - an important skill. We have to act quickly at first, and then take the consequences.

"Charlatans are convinced that there is something terrible and it should be treated"

- Now you are doing exceptionally enlightening or techniques continue to lead?

- No, I am not tricks. I retired from the Army in 2001, he tried to find himself in the civilian and immediately run into medical quackery, who had not faced up to the army. At that moment I knew I had to talk about it. I came to an ad in the Lenta.ru and got regular news editor: wrote political and economic news. After that I was offered to go to Mednovosti.ru, where I worked as a journalist for a long time on their profile.

- You call yourself a "collector of medical quackery." What items in your collection the most valuable?

- Quack can be divided into two major groups: diagnostic and therapeutic. Usually, they are closely linked. As a rule, in a public hospital you go to the doctor diagnostician, rent analyzes the results and go on all four sides, so that intervention is required: the state in the normal range. On the dark side of medicine because there will never be. You have something sure to find, and if you do not show up, come up with a diagnosis.

Quack methods have nothing to do with medicine, but at the same time allow to convince the person that there is something terrible and it should be treated. Moreover, no drug and bio-additives, homeopathy and other means, which are often not even registered in our country.

At one time in medicine has been the fashion for stem cells, such as fish. I looked and thought it was the most amazing thing that I have come across, but it is not: just recently started appearing in pharmacies creams with stem cells, grape seed. They supposedly penetrate the skin and rejuvenate its promise, but do you get with the grapes, did not specify.

- How can you convince a person that he is not all right?

- The man - a very awe-inspiring creation, so it is easy to deceive. This is facilitated by including the Internet, which replicates the regular horror stories about what all we will die. If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow is unique. Everything is so scary and horrible, that people listened to themselves, necessarily find something: Heart is not pounding so incomprehensible itching, strange thoughts.

You only need a push, and after that the patient will go to fellow charlatan because doctors around today negative halo. Thanks to the media, which have helped to create it, and are not always deliberate reforms, due to which the medicine of the scattered baboutMost of adequate specialists. If you add more and the current education, which requires the novice doctors much less effort than before, that emerges is not the most beautiful picture.

On the horizon is already waving joyous quacks who promise a man a necessary healing of all that he has. They carry a huge positive charge and a promise that will not have to stand in any queues - everything must be checked in one place. This is convenient, but this does not happen in a normal medicine: doctors have the specialization, because one person is not can both remember this amount of information to work with all parts of the body, organs and systems. It is important that the expert knew their area, but charlatans do not care.

- How did they manage to mislead the patient's head?

- The first thing they tell you that the device is designed with the help of space technologies and is available in only one health center, and all the research spend on the spot. You put on the headphones head, hear clicks and then appear on the screen sections of organs and icons. They show the emergence of some pathological processes.

In this case, the man explained that conventional medicine supposedly hits the tail: only treats the symptoms, not the person. They caught a disease that is only willing to develop, so it needs no medicines, and supplements. Dealer sitting with a suitcase next to his office or at your local pharmacy. Sometimes he psevdodoktor can simultaneously be a distributor of dietary supplements.

- You are a medical journalist and try to deal with errors, but how it turns out? Something is changing?

- I would not say that nothing has changed, because I have a feedback. I actively write different people, including the negative sentiment. Most often it is antiprivivochniki and homeopaths who call and threaten to courts. They tell me that I bought all the pharmaceutical companies at the same time and generally promote programs of genocide of the Russian nation.

Fortunately, the positive feedback on my work still more. People often say that I was able to sort through everything that was in their heads. The same anti-vaccination sentiment often appears in the form of a protective response. Proprivivochniki not always convey the information and arguments correctly. And people take the side "against" only because they do not understand the direction "for".

Even to advance knowledge about the importance of vaccination, there are some subtleties. It is impossible to frenzied campaigning for the use of vaccines. Clearly, this is a wonderful invention that allows us to live longer, but some people go to extremes and begin to shout about vaccination without explanation, and for many this is important.

It is because of this increased my column Evil criticism, which appeared on the website of the magazine "Health", then migrated to the "Medportal", and is now on the site "XX2 Century". It is built on a thorough analysis of some of the statements - including antiprivivochnikov. However, now on my operating table get even Instagram-bloggers. At first I did not take this area seriously, but has recently opened it, was horrified and I realized that there are many people who make a fool of all.

- Who are these people?

- I have often talked about Natalia Zubarev, Elena Kornilov and Katya Chi. These girls a huge number of subscribers - from 100 thousand to a million. I was surprised, I began to read, and the rest of my head hair stand on end. People recommend to their readers the terrible things - a coffee enema, for example. She studied fine and has a large number of side effects: heart problems and even death. In addition, ladies are advised to huge sets of dietary supplements: to method to work, you need to take 20-30 pills a day.

I understand that they are likely to read the young guys. At a young age, such interventions can pass without any consequences, but people are different. Judging by the reviews, the posts of the girls tried to convince people to abandon chemotherapy oncological diseasesAnd some even earned disease, which they did not have before. Such blogs - islands of obscurantism, which is better not to face. She is beautiful and graceful, so subscribers are starting to repeat everything she advises to be the same. Although in reality it's just her way of earning. As it turned out, Instagram - a good platform for this.

- Let's be honest: sometimes a lie can be heard by the medical staff. We have a poor level of education?

- Unfortunately, it happens. Keep in mind that even if the education given, not every student took it. Some, having received the diploma, put it away on a shelf and forget about the special literature. Of course, there are now requirements: every five years, doctors have to undergo training and confirm the certificate of the expert, but sometimes the problem is solved with the help of a certain number of money.

In addition, in civil high schools the opportunity to study free of charge, so the University is interested to drag until the last student. It is because of this among so many novice doctors and Losers troechnikov who buy exams. I'm afraid to imagine what will happen when these people reach the issue and will remain in medicine. The consequences are visible now. The representatives of the old guard are gradually fading and what is happening in medicine does not leave hope that people will not escape from it.

Seriously affected the primary level of care - there is virtually no one to work. I think many people have seen salary statements that are scared to even look. General vector abysmal, so that the number of adequate medical industry will only shrink.

Deplorable situation provokes attitudes to doctors as sellers health services and the imposition of schemes "The patient is always right." People do not follow doctor appointments, self-correcting them and then complain about the lack of results. For some reason they think that doctors owe them the coffin of life in every situation. Even when the reception ended, or have to work on three areas, because no one else. Doctors beaten and prosecute for things they did not commit. Sometimes there are quite unjust situations that worsen the already deplorable state of health care.

Periodically, the doctors themselves do not realize what they're doing something wrong. At the state level often promoted dubious drugs with unproven clinical effectiveness. This is perhaps one of the main problems. A person can be an acceptable physician who does not promote obscurantism, but he believed opinion leaders - professors and academics who talk at a scientific conference about the success of a the drug.

- What to Look For in the time of reception, so as not to fall for the tricks, which are known only within the community?

- If you are prescribed a drug list, you can easily check them out in the State Register of medicines. It is publicly available on the website of Ministry of Health. If you do not find what you have written, the first question may be a doctor. The second stage - Rospotrebnadzor registries, which contains supplements, cosmetics and everything else.

If you find a part of the "drug" in rospotrebnadzorovskom list with your doctor is better not to meet any more, because the normal drugs he uses. And if any one registry medications that you are prescribed, no - this is even more serious reason to think. Most likely, your doctor promotes strange things.

Since the diagnosis is more difficult: to prove that the doctor made a mistake, it is very difficult. Even so, there is a dilemma: he did it on purpose or not on purpose. Most often intentionally added sores private clinics urological and gynecological areas. They find one genital infections and is credited with four more bonus from the company that you have spent on tests and drugs, and increased the average check doctor.

Next bell - strange diagnoses. For example, the voltage of the liver, slagging of the body of the third degree or acidification of the blood. There is the International Classification of Diseases, which is available on the Internet. Look in her diagnosis that you have set, and if he did not show up - you make a fool of.

Another interesting criterion by which to distinguish easily quackery - the opportunity to provide socially important medical document on the basis of diagnosis. Ask whether it is possible for a doctor to get sick or to issue a disability? According to the directions, no fake certificates are not issued, because as soon as it comes to the examination, it turns out that the diagnosis has nothing to do with medicine.

The last of the available methods - the existence of a condition or disease control. For example, you know that you do not have the right kidney, but the doctor found her in some kind of disease. Once it becomes clear that for the qualification of your diagnostician.

"Vaccination - is our public duty"

- You say that the medicine is in a deplorable state. Is it worth it to the person who wants to become a doctor, to go into this profession?

- The poor state of no excuse to give up the dream. If you wait for perfect conditions, they may never come. In the 90s, too, it was not easy, but we still worked and assisted. In the end, the old guard needed someone to replace, and it is good if it's motivated people who have come into the profession consciously.

Now there are plenty of opportunities to score medicine approaches. There are projects "Smart Moscow", "Clever Peter" and others, where you can come and try yourself in the role of endoscopic surgery. It is clear that you will not be cut living tissues, but you will understand that by using the same equipment is difficult to expand or build a candy house made of matches. Use this opportunity.

If, nevertheless, will be going to go, know that will have to work with a huge amount of information. Many things need to remember, though now it is not fashionable - and everyone uses flash drives cloud storage. However, doctors are not always where there is Internet and electricity. In extreme conditions, you will be only the hands and knowledge, so luggage must be accurate. The doctor is obliged to provide first aid - there are articles in the law for the violation of this rule.

In addition, you will have to pass through itself all the patient's pain. If you do not, one of you will turn a mediocre doctor. On the other hand, you can not overdo it, because there is a risk of professional burn out. We have to learn to keep their distance: to hurt, then to man was good. Skill to put a shield between himself and the patient in our profession is very useful. It's difficult, because there is a risk of sliding into a complete cynicism and not perceived by the patient as a people, but on the other side waiting for burnout. Look for a middle ground.

Another piece of advice: go away, if you feel that it's not yours. You can change the specialization and focus efforts on the study, but it is better not to work with patients if you do not like it. We are already too many doctors who do not know how to do it.

It should also be understood that if you are enrolled in medical school, your study is lifelong. Knowledge in our field are rapidly increasing. If you have not read the year of special literature and not looked lecture is absolutely far behind. Medicine - a study that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Normal doctor learns to his last breath.

- a good doctor should possess What skills and qualities?

- It is difficult to say because the doctor-laboratory assistant, surgeon and therapist must have a different set of competencies. I can not say that it is necessary to educate yourself, but tell you what exactly will have to face.

First of all - this is a huge responsibility. Infantilism common today, but make decisions and take responsibility for them is required immediately after the release from the university. If the diploma is written, "the doctor," you have to render assistance to any person who asks for it.

More One more important thing - the ability to safely react to different situations. Calm and balanced you exactly useful because patients are different. In addition, in a state of illness have changed the mentality. The most common diseases - such as chronic pain - very much changed man. It's not the characters that come to you cured, happy and satisfied. Ill patient in the best case, the evil and irritable, and at worst - can climb into the fray.

In addition, it is important to to learn English. Previously, the international language was Latin: it wrote dissertations and lectures, and in medicine today has nothing to do without English. It is the international language of science, which appears almost all the relevant information. Maybe then it will notice and be transferred, but at this point will take 5 or 10 years. Maybe this will not happen at all. In addition, English enables the practice and study abroad.

It is also important to develop critical thinking to information and to learn to work with it. This is never taught, but there are online courses - for example, Coursera. At the time I got there a lot of skills, which I was not allowed in the academy.

- You actively oppose the motion antiprivivochnikov and say that without vaccines, many people could never be born. Why?

- We are a species, so the disease for us - a factor of selection and control population size. Completely deny the impact of epidemics on mankind stupid: some we have seen recently. Recall that in the middle of the XIX century swept through Europe, one of the recent epidemics of smallpox. It claimed more than 500,000 lives. In 1918, the Spaniard has destroyed so many people that the exact number of victims has not yet been established. According to the most conservative estimates, about 50 million people, according to the most pessimistic - about 100 million. There are no guarantees that the epidemic will not happen again, we do not have, but there are statistics of infectious diseases for which good shows that the life expectancy is gradually increased with the advent of vaccination and the number of infectious diseases - decreased.

We can not destroy the vaccine-preventable diseases, but we can keep them behind a fence. Completely destroy smallpox happened only because this has made tremendous efforts all over the world: compulsory vaccination was organized. The situation is unique, so the rest of infections such focus, I'm afraid, will not work. That is why it is important that the fence, which we build, was high and did not contain gaps. If there are holes, we find the same situation as that of diphtheria in 90s or measles now.

The problem is that vaccination - it's not about the individual. Naturally, most vaccination reduces the risk of infection and the possibility of death, but all the other advantages - for the public. We do not become a source of infection and its spread in the population. In addition, there are people to whom vaccination is contraindicated, and we must protect them from diseases. This is our public duty. I understand that the expression of the now fashionable, but you need to accept that we have some obligations to the others.

- Tell me what it looks like your workplace?

- I work as a journalist, so my workplace, wherever there is an Internet. This can be a room in a hotel, the promenade with Wi-Fi or a waiting room at the airport. For work I have enough tablet-transformer, with which I shall not leave for many years. It's small, very long time holding a charge and has a roomy hard drive.

The only thing that I always carried with me, - the mouse. I have a big hand, and in addition to the time before I finalize tunnel syndrome. It was tough: he had long held and had to wear a splint. As it I initially used the bowling glove with a metal plate. Hand with the time still sensitive to stress, so I had to pick up the anatomical mouse. I found only one large model and everywhere I drive it with you - with the other simply can not work.

Naturally, all development projects must be with him, so in the workplace and includes more external hard disk, and cloud storage information.

- How do you organize yourself throughout the day?

- The main thing - do not put off until the last moment. This skill brought me more times with the cadet. I know that procrastination - very fashionable thing, but still I understand that sometimes art can really just do not go. In those moments you can not put off the project and did not return to it. You can make small steps - to read literature and write. Sometimes you just need to walk and structure all in my head. So you're still working, and not dully staring at the monitor. Then come back with complete clarity and do everything in 2 hours. You just need to switch.

- You take what some applications that simplify life and save time, nerves, strength?

- If we talk about professional things I really like the browser extension UnPayWall. It is necessary for legal access to full-text articles. Often I write about some drugs and diseases, so customers are asked to specify what studies I enjoyed. I need to check and see what I am referring, because anyone can make mistakes. This requires legal PDF, and extension can help.

In addition, there is another way to gain legal access to articles and ask any researcher to comment for the article. For this is useful to the network ResearchGate, Which allowed only researchers and science journalists. Newest need to show identification and scan their publication in serious publications. The site is very helpful in the work, because the scientists in the network responsible for a few minutes - they have set up an alert system. It's a wonderful thing, I highly recommend the scientific journalists.

- And what do you do in your spare time?

- This is a difficult question, because a person's free time that works remotely - something quite ephemeral. I can not do anything for eight hours, as happens in the office, but I can work for two hours and then go to cook something.

I like cooking. The Cadets, we lived in a dormitory, and our course taught by representatives of 40 nationalities, so I learned how to cook a lot of different dishes, and I know a lot of recipes. For example, in the usual scrambled eggs is enough to add fresh herbs and tomatoes, to get fried in Armenian with completely new flavors.

Basically, my free time is taken lectures and travel around the country. This is a unique way to switch. Before, I would never get to Kamchatka, because this is expensive, but when it will organize a lecture, it is possible to see the volcanoes and the Pacific Ocean. During such trips a rest under the full program.

I also like music. While studying, I played in a band on keyboards. Now the house has a synthesizer and guitar - I know how to use a simple set of chords. Making music - a great way to switch and think. In this respect, it often saves me.

In addition, I like cats. Now I have six of them, while his total of four, two more cat - Dochkin. All Thai - This breed is very like our family. They chelovekoorientirovannye and intellectual development. Recently, Japanese scientists have confirmed that cats know their nicknames, and distinguish them from others, but I knew it long before them. In addition, these animals are the best de-stress. Just you take them in his arms, stroking, and becomes good. And indeed, they are the most telling example of how to relax. In this case, the cat champions, who have long grasped the Zen.

Layfhakerstvo from Alexei Vodovozova

books

As a child, made a lasting impression on me the book M. AND. Janowska "Is there a limit?" About the history of vaccines, and sulfonamides antibiotics. After it, I became interested in not only the scientific part of medicine, but also its history. The hobby has survived to this day. Plus I loved - and still love - good fiction, so "Girl with Earth"Kir Bulychev was read to tatters. As Strugatsky. As Asimov. And Asprin and Heinlein, and Harrison - separate collection of proud adventures Jimmy di Grisa autographed by the author.

Books that deserve attention, it is now difficult to advise. More 10 years ago would say 2-3, but today is so much written, translated and published, I, frankly, lost. But still I try.

So, if you are interested in medical quackery - how it originated, why it is so popular, and what to do - "Neither purse, nor life"E. Ernst and C. Singh. A couple of my book "The patient is a reasonable"(And I humble, yes) is obtained by the real and the most complete encyclopedia as a diagnostic and therapeutic quackery.

If you want to understand what kind of animal evidence-based medicine - "0,05"Peter Talantova. The first book in our country on this subject with excellent historical excursions and analysis of the most pressing and controversial issues.

Lovely science journalist Ben Goldacre sort through bad science and bad pharma: not all the science and all the medicines are equally useful, unfortunately. Two of its main labor translated into Russian - a "Fraud in Science" and "bad medicine».

If you want to learn how doctors get sick deadly diseases - "When breathing air dissolves in"Paul Kalaniti. The author - a surgeon, who died of lung cancer, but until recently worked and describe it all in a book.

What's it like - to leave the medicine on the height of his career, and dramatically change the scope of activities. Spoiler: it is very difficult. Gorgeous British comedian Adam Kay even warned about it in the title of his book "It will hurt».

Renowned neurosurgeon Henry Marsh in his two books "Do no harm"And"Vocation"Tells how difficult it is to choose the path of a doctor, learn to run through the pain of thousands of patients and their death. The best benefit of medical ethics ever.

Paul Offit in the book "Deadly choice"Exhaustively examines the anti-vaccination myths: how they originated and what can harm an individual and to all humanity.

Blog Authors "History of Medicine" Alex and Anna Payevsky Khoruzhaya in his books "In general, the plague!"And"The death of great people"Reveal the unknown pages of old and relatively recent past. In particular, it explains when the first large-scale epidemics and distinct that we can talk about the death of King Tut or the Bloc.

Sergey Butrim, excellent pediatrician, adequate and competent expert (also from "our", of the non-traditional medical doctors focus on evidence-based medicine) up instructions for parents - what to do and, more importantly, what not to do when a child is sick. It called "Health of the child. The modern approach. How to learn to cope with the disease and their own panic. "

If you are interested in the inner kitchen of military medicine, in particular, how they lived and studied cadets of the Military Medical Academy in the 1980s, I recommend the book Andrew Lomachinskogo "Academy native». We learned at the same faculty with a difference of 5 years, so I managed to catch many described the characters and take part in various traditional "rituals" and "ceremonies", for example in the famous "holiday ass" (the night before the exam at the normal anatomy).

TV series

Soaps just like them. Although those that do not like, can also inspire. I have a whole lecture on medical errors in series.

From just popular with - "Charlatans", "Eternity", "Black Mirror", "Electric Dreams Philip K. Dick"," Happy "," Billions "," Brainless "," a modified carbon "," Firefly "," Rome. "

Video

From what I look regularly on YouTube, - channel Dmitry Puchkov. Not only because I was invited to. Sometimes, there come across some very interesting and remarkable people.

Furthermore, the channel UrgentCare - it leads skoropomoschniki that tell about the actions in different emergency situations, starting and ending with a knife wound to the bite of a snake. It is very easy to understand, clearly, and most importantly - all scientifically.

channels "NaukaPRO"And"Antropogenez.ru"- again, not only because there is my speech. Here, high-quality evidence-based information from truly passionate people and experts in their field.

Channel Anatoly Sharia - well, there's just nice to see how a true professional in journalism. The quality of work is respected. And yet look at musicians channels - Alexander Fur, alina Gingertail, Vladimir Zelentsova. It is for the soul!

Blogs and Websites

From blogs and websites regularly I read foreign colleagues in a dangerous business fight against obscurantism - ScienceBasedMedicine.org, site RetractionWatch, Medical network UpToDateBlog Leonid Schneider ForBetterScience blogs and Russian doctors and journalists - both on labor need to, and just to be in the know.