GLENDALE HOSPITAL BECOMES LAB FOR ARMENIAN DOCTORS.

Byline: Donna Huffaker Daily News Staff Writer

As six visiting Armenian doctors toured Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center on Friday, Dr. Levon Movsessyan looked up from his video camera in surprise when a father walked out of a maternity room.

In Armenia, he said, it is not encouraged for men to be at their wife's side during delivery.

``It's just tradition,'' he said through an interpreter. Movsessyan is a pediatrician and neurosurgeon and runs a children's clinic.

For the Armenian doctors, the six-week visit to Glendale has been an eye-opening experience - medically and culturally - as it has been for the local doctors, nurses and medical staff who have been their tour guides, instructors and hosts.

The Armenians are here to look for ideas for restructuring their country's crumbling health-care system. Friday was the third day the medical team made rounds at Glendale Memorial and took note of how American health care management works.

``Doctors, patients in Armenia are very tired,'' said Sergey Khachatryan, a urologist who works for the Armenian Ministry of Health. ``Things must change.''

Armenia has no health insurance and hospitals are run by the government, he said. Aside from treating patients, doctors in his native country also work as hospital directors and handle the management aspect of health care - something that overburdens the physicians and ultimately takes them away from the patients, he said.

Steven Fellows, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Glendale Memorial, witnessed this firsthand when he visited Armenia last year.

Fellows observed no admitting departments. When he tried to find a patient in one of the hospitals, he discovered he could not look up patients according to their names or diseases. Patients were admitted by date, he said.

``The old Soviet government-run system of health care is not going to work in the new international market Armenia finds itself having to compete in,'' Fellows said.

So, after meetings between various dignitaries and health-care professionals in Armenia, it was decided to arrange for a team of doctors to learn as much as they could from other countries' health-care systems, Fellows said.

The six-week program in America includes course work two days a week taught by University of Southern California faculty from the university's master's program in health administration.

On Tuesday, the doctors will meet with former Gov. George Deukmejian and Armen Melkonian, the Consul General of the Republic of Armenia. They will talk about Armenia's ailing health care and discuss ways to rebuild it.

The program is funded in part by the Lincy Foundation, which supports Armenian and humanitarian causes. It donated $100,000 to help underwrite costs of air fare, accommodations, course materials, interpreters and meals.

Fellows, who plans to return to Armenia this summer, said Glendale's large population of Armenian-Americans prompted him to learn more about the culture. And to embrace the ethnic community, the hospital has added Armenian meals to its menu and an Armenian cable channel to its programming.

On Friday, the doctors visited a variety of departments, including the maternity ward and the newborn intensive care unit.

Another cultural difference the Armenians told their hosts about - one that surprised Glendale Memorial staff - is that all women are expected to breast-feed their children in Armenia, unless there is some medical reason why they cannot use their own breast milk. Then they use donor breast milk.

Wendy Jackson, administrative director of women's health services, said it would be highly unusual for an American woman to use another's milk. Formula is the substitute when a mother's breast milk is not used, she said.

``I think this is as interesting for us as it is for them,'' she said of the cultural differences.

Perhaps the most impressive site the doctors saw Friday was the hospital's newborn intensive care unit. The unit, which uses the latest in medical technology, opened last summer. While hospitals in Armenia offer special rooms for babies with emergencies, he said the equipment is usually 15 to 17 years old or older. Typically, doctors monitor the infants more than the machines.

``It's dangerous. Things need to change,'' Khachatryan said.

``We have our goals. We see what we want. We just need to learn how to make it happen,'' he added.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Dr. Robert Gall, right, talks to doctors from Armenia visiting Glendale Memorial Hospital.

(2) Sergey Urmian, left, videotapes his group's visit to Glendale Memorial Hospital.

David Crane/Daily News