Cooperation between health professionals from the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Conclusions from a trip to the Soviet Union.

The United States has long made its academic medical resources available to foreign medical graduates. Conspicuously absent from the number of foreign nationals, however, have been physicians, scientists, and educators from the Soviet Union. Under the new conditions of perestroika, Soviet medical professionals are seeking ways in which to open up broad collaboration with their American counterparts. Agreements are being sought between national organizations, between academic medical institutions, and for the exchange of individual scholars. Cooperation in the area of medical education is one of the distinctive bridges on the path to mutual understanding that will represent a strong link in the public diplomacy of the two superpowers. We recently had the opportunity to discuss in Moscow some of the issues with the U.S.S.R. Minister of Health and with the Pro-rector for International Programs of the Central Institute for Advanced Medical Studies, as well as with faculty members, young medical scientists, and medical students of the Moscow Medical Institutes. We describe briefly many of the similarities and some of the dissonances between our two health systems and set forth ideas for an exchange program in medical education.