Nataliya Kubasova Joins the Primary Care Center
Nataliya Kubasova joins the Primary Care Center (PCC) of Monticello as a true student of medicine. The Belarus, Russia native completed a three-year medical residency at Union Hospital in Terre Haute, Indiana earlier this year as she continues in the family tradition of practicing medicine as well as being a lifelong student of medicine in order to keep up with the pace of increasing medical technology.
I first encountered the latest physician to be added to the PCC medical staff a few weeks ago during a staff luncheon, although I only knew her name and some of her credentials on paper it wasn’t hard to place the face. It was what I would call her SSS demeanor (silent, strong and stoic) coupled with those fiercely blonde tresses and mesmerizing green eyes that spoke Russian to me.
Her cultural attributes, likely different from the preponderance of patients she will serve here, seem to me to be an added plus. Dr. Kubasova explained that the Russian education system was very different than our American structure. Following 10 years of rigorous schooling in Belarus (years equivalent to our elementary, middle and high school combined), Nataliya entered medical school in Russia at age 16. She knew early on that medicine was for her, after all it is in her genes—her mother was an OB-GYN in Russia. As a youth, Nataliya remembered the energy, care, and long days that her mother, now retired, would put into her work in an effort to better the welfare of others.
“She put in lots of hours in hospital. I saw how she made her patients happier and healthier. I wanted that for myself—to be able to help,” said Dr. Kubasova.
The new PCC physician said that she liked the idea of generational medicine—being able to help the young and the elderly. So she often spends her time researching topics from pediatrics to geriatrics when not intensely evaluating patient medical charts—which is where she quietly vanished to following that PCC staff luncheon a few weeks ago when I first met her.
So just how did she get to Monticello, Georgia from Russia? Well love brought her to America and career landed her in Monticello, although she did not word it like that. She met her American husband while he was traveling throughout Europe, and their courtship led them across the globe where she entered and completed her medical residency at Union Hospital in Terre Haute, Indiana. They live in Locust Grove where he commutes to work in sales with a disposable chemical company and she travels here.
Dr. Kubasova has always yearned to work in a small community, after all rural medicine was one of her concentrations in Indiana.
“I like everything about medicine. There are a lot of new changes in medicine so you must study every day,” she said. “I believe in developing the brain every day—mental exercise— in order to help others.”
I asked if she longed for her homeland much and her mother to which she said sometimes but then she noted that she travels home once or twice a year. As for her mom, they speak every day and she is expected to visit here next month. Keeping in the family tradition, Dr. Kubasova’s 22 year-old daughter is currently enrolled in medical school at Ross University in Dominica, West Indies. The youngest doctor in training, raised in America, graduated from Fayette High School and Georgia Tech.
Though Dr. Kubasova appears to be a woman of few words and is a little camera shy, she found all the right words to thank everyone who has welcomed her in Jasper County thus far.
“I am happy to be here. I like this town and everyone has been nice and polite. I appreciate the community accepting me as a doctor/physician. I will try to do everything to make people happy and healthier.”
