AS A trainee journalist I received a lesson I vowed never to forget, during a visit to Stavanger in western Norway. The little town, with its white clapboard houses, is the capital of the so called Bible Belt, because it has so many Protestant churches and chapels. Off the coast, oil rigs stand like cathedrals above the waves.
I planned to write a story about visiting American oil workers who were corrupting the clean living Norwegians; but it turned out to be the other way round. Far from painting the town red on their shore leave, the Americans, who were all Southern Baptists, were trying to save the Norwegians from sin.
I should have remembered Stavanger last week when I set out to cover a very different story, my head already stuffed with preconceptions. In connection with President Boris Yeltsin's heart operation, I planned a feature on ordinary Russian hospitals, how filthy they are, how the patients can receive treatment only if they bribe the doctors, how medicines are in short supply and how patients must bring their own food.
But at Moscow's Botkin Hospital I found a very different picture - clean wards, modern equipment, adequate medical supplies and a dedicated staff.
Either the Botkin had gone to extraordinary lengths to put on a show for my benefit or this particular Russian hospital was no worse than many state hospitals in the West.
Russian friends had led me to expect horrors. For example, one housewife called Tamara told me that her mother had been rushed to hospital during a public holiday. There were virtually no doctors or nurses on duty and her mother was left lying in a draughty corridor for three days until the staff returned to work. Another friend told me that she needed a gynaecological operation but could not afford to bribe the doctors with cognac and chocolates in order to get a bed.
Believe me, I tried to dig up dirt - like this at the Botkin hospital; but the worst I came across was a doctor who offered me a cigarette and a lavatory without any toilet paper.
My visit began with a courtesy call to the chief doctor, Vladimir Yakovlev, who received me in a large room with luxurious swivel chairs and old paintings on the walls. "Ah hah," I thought, "the fat cat boss has a plush office for himself while his staff struggle in primitive conditions."
Not so. The room doubled as a conference hall for the hospital's 25 heads of department and the museum recording the history of the Botkin, which was founded 85 years ago with money donated by a pre revolutionary merchant.
The 1,800 bed hospital is undoubtedly prestigious, being the centre to which foreigners are always referred if they fall sick in Moscow. But the majority of its patients are Russians receiving state treatment, free of charge if they are residents of the capital or the surrounding region.
"Five years ago, when the West was sending humanitarian aid to Russia, things were difficult," said Dr Yakovlev. "We really did need help then. But the economic situation in the country is slowly improving. We are getting modern equipment and have all the medicines we need. We have 18 different antibiotics, bought from Western firms based here. Not every foreign hospital can boast of that, I think."
Dr Yakovlev acknowledges that the picture is grimmer in the provinces. He also says he would like a bigger budget. "There is never enough money," he remarks. But at least his staff are being paid on time, unlike millions of other workers across Russia.
Salaries are pitiful by Western standards but love of the job has prevented most staff being lured into more lucrative non medical work. The chief doctor himself earns the equivalent of $300 a month a nurse takes home $60 for a 36 hour working week.
"Of course the pay is poor, but I would not dream of doing anything else," says junior doctor Galina Shvalbe, who confides that her other passion in life is the music of Freddy Mercury. She has just dressed me in a white coat and put what looked like Santa socks over my outdoor shoes to show me round the revival unit for heart attack victims in the cardiology department. Newly renovated, the unit gleams and whirrs with the latest computerised equipment from America.
One patient brought in a month ago has now been advised that he will need a by pass operation like President Yeltsin. For the surgery the heart attack victim, Alexei Nesterov (62), will be transferred to another hospital and then sent to a sanatorium outside Moscow to recuperate. All at the state's expense.
"Of course, no expert from Texas will advise in my case," said Mr Nesterov, referring to Dr Michael DeBakey, who monitored Mr Yeltsin's operation. "But I am perfectly satisfied with the care I am receiving at the Botkin hospital."
It may not excite the editors of sensational newspapers, but this is the good news, I am bound to report on this occasion, from Russia.