From the April - May  2001 Edition 

Dr. Livshits   Boris Livshits recently opened an Internal Medicine practice on Broadway. We asked Dr. Livshits to tell us his story, the first in a series of stories about Fair Lawn's new immigrants.   Dr. Livshits is proud of his education, graduating with honors from the best medical school in Moscow. For 12 years he worked in well-known Moscow Sklifosovsky Hospital of Emergency Medicine, where he obtained his Ph.D. He emigrated in 1994 because it was not safe for his family to stay.   After immigrating, he took English classes and then passed the medical boards with top scores. He interned at St. Vincent's Medical Center of Richmond for three years and finished it as 'The Resident of the Year 1999', but had trouble finding a job afterwards. He told Fair Lawn News that "physicians' groups, squeezed in between the managed care organizations on one side and large hospitals on the other side could not afford to hire me.  I am a highly trained physician with my own view on what to do and how much time to spend with patients. To be profitable I would have had to see some patients for five to seven minutes and fill in mountains of senseless paperwork."   Despite his credentials, Dr. Livshits once saw an e-mail from a potential American employer that said:  "Russian medical training is historically bad. Their physicians end up with training more like we would consider for a nurse practitioner."  Dr. Livshits feels that "some Americans have forgotten their great history as a country of immigrants. My children have a lot of friends in Fair Lawn and they tell me their friend's parents will never come to see a Russian doctor." He wonders "What do I tell them? "   That is why Doctor Livshits opened his own practice, first in Middlesex County. "People appreciate what I do for them and they travel to visit me for 20-30 minutes. Nearly all of my patients are of Soviet Union descent."  Doctor Livshits added: "I have been in Fair Lawn for almost seven years and I have a lot of friends here. I decided it is a payback time for their constant support. I have to direct my skills helping them in Fair Lawn and I opened an office on Broadway. I also try to do my best to overcome the cautiousness of Americans."   Links   For information about Dr. Livshits practice, see: http://www.drlivshis.com   For stories about other immigrants, see League Interviews   Send a story about a Fair Lawn immigrant to editor@fairlawnnews.com