Still during the Soviet era, emergency physicians were relatively highly paid, second only to primary care physicians. This was intended to compensate emergency physicians for their lack of popularity and prestige. The role of feldshers in the Russian health care system is distinctly different from that of nurses. While a nurse's function consists mostly of comforting the patient and carrying out physician's orders, feldshers have often been independent practitioners, trained to perform certain diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, frequently without physician supervision. With the proliferation of doctors, the specialty of feldsher became somewhat obsolete.
Emergency medicine is the only field in urban areas in which feldshers are still used.
The second major network for acute care is a system of polyclinics or multispecialty neighborhood health centers. In these centers, patients are assigned to primary care physicians according to their residence. A primary care doctor s practice usually covers several city blocks and everyone within that area becomes this physician s patient. The system works in the following way. The patient wishing to be seen by a doctor can go to a local polyclinic and see a primary care physician or call a polyclinic and request a house visit.