Most of Poland's 90,000 doctors make low wages and are still caught solidly in a web of socialism. That is why 30,000 members of one doctors' union went on strike at the end of last year and continue to refuse to treat all but the sickest patients.

• Under communism, they were consigned to a category called the "nonproductive sector" -- where they remain to this day.

• Supposedly employed full-time by the state, thousands of doctors practice privately on the side.

• In Poland's healthy economy, spending on health comes to 4.5 percent of national product -- compared to over 14 percent in the U. S.

• Officially, a doctor's base pay is about $250 a month -- about 80 percent of the national average.

Doctors working in the state's hospitals get extra money from patients who bribe them in order to get better care. These funds, along with fees earned in private practice, have been estimated at $350 million a year.

By the most optimistic estimates, real reforms won't occur in Polish medicine for another 10 years. In the meantime, most doctors have a choice: be a poor idealist or a well-off opportunist.

Source: Barry Newman, "Polish Doctors Feel They Are Losing Out in a Capitalist Boom," Wall Street Journal, January 15, 1997.