I followed my parents advice and entered the medical faculty of the Ryazan State Medical University named after academician I.P. Pavlov.

Our faculty trains general patricians but after a six-year course of study we can undergo a course of specialization in surgery, therapy, gynecology, infectious diseases, pediatrics an so on.

Beginning with the third year we shall study special subjects and I am sure that this will help me to choose a field of medicine to work in.

To begin with, a profession of a therapeutist is noble and rather interesting. One has to have deep knowledge in methods of patient's examination in order to be able to make a correct diagnosis and prescribe a proper treatment. These methods include questioning a patient about his complaints, studying his medical history, physical examination involving auscultation, percussion, taking blood pressure, palpating the abdomen. To confirm his initial diagnosis therapeutist usually administers some laboratory analyses of blood and urine. In addition, it is often necessary to make the patient to be X-rayed. In urgent cases a therapeutists directs his patients to in-patient departments.

Many of my fellow-students are interested in surgery which is considered one of the most difficult medical professions Once we were present at the operation for appendicytis. The condition of the patient was severe. There was a danger of appendix rupture. We watched the surgeon prepare for the operation in a scrub-up room: he bared his arms over the elbow, washed them under the running water and painted the nails with iodine. Then the surgical nurse helped him to put on a mask and rubber gloves. The surgeon and his assistant performed the operation skillfully. The patient survived the operation well, the postoperative course was uneventful. The patient was discharged from the hospital in seven days after the stitches was removed.

The work of the ambulance doctor is still more harder and more complicated, to my mind. I think so: because an ambulance doctor must have deep knowledge in different fields of medicine. It is not easy to make a diagnosis on the spot. Besides, some causes are too severe and the doctor must make decisions quickly in order to safe the patient's life. The ambulance should have all modern equipment to help the doctor in his work.