Radiology in Lithuania: impressions of a visiting professor.

In the fall of 1993, I had the privilege of spending 3 months as a Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) International Visiting Professor at the Kaunas Medical Academy in Lithuania. This visiting professor program was started in 1986 and is funded by the RSNA Research and Education Fund [1]. It is designed for a visiting professor who can spend 3 months or longer at a radiology residency training program in an evolving country. Lithuania, with a population of about 4 million, is located on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, just north of Poland. The land area is approximately equal to that of Switzerland. An independent country until World War II, when it was forcibly occupied and integrated into the Soviet Union, it regained independence in 1990. As a result of 50 years of communist rule, two generations grew up having little knowledge about Western medicine in general and radiology in particular. A communist legacy is still evident not only in education but also in the thought process of the people, although there is a clear desire to integrate Into western Europe. Currently Western and Asian consumer goods are readily available, but the country has undergone steep inflation and it is the perception of many that the standard of living continues to decline.