I have to warn you in advance, this isn’t going to be a very amusing post at all. It’s not morbid, or anything like that, just mildly informative. Anybody in or connected to South Korea has probably heard rumors of the Korean medical world- ‘it’s cheaper than in the States’, ‘it’s just as good’, and of course, ‘all they do is plastic surgery, right?’
Well, while South Korea is considered the plastic surgery capital of the world (apparently with Brazil in a close second), they do also have regular old doctors here. Going to see the doctor for something standard (the flu, say) generally involves walking into the office, flashing your ARC (and possibly insurance information), sitting down for 3 minutes, and answering some standard questions and getting checked out. Then, oh so very likely, you will be prescribed pills. LOTS of them. What are they? Who knows… I tried to ask the couple times I went to the doctor, but never got much of an answer. So, anecdotal examples, how exciting! And shouldn’t things come in threes? Enjoy, if you’re so bored inclined to do so:
First
My first experience with a Korean doctor was when I suspected I was becoming anemic (thank you, Korean diet), and I wanted a blood test. I walked in, showed my ARC and insurance paper, sat down, and the doctor had moderate English. Enough to do business. He was pretty chatty (keen to use his English), so you might have to keep the doc on track. Once my blood test results came back, I asked him if I could then have some iron supplements (I was anemic, by the way). He was at first reluctant to do so, and asked me if I knew what foods I should eat to get iron.
‘Of course,’ I said ‘red meat, beans, spinach, almonds and other nuts… It’s just very expensive and/or difficult to get those things here.’
‘Ah, wait.’ The man took out a piece of paper and began writing the foods down. ‘Ok, continue.’
…Who’s the doctor here?? I thought it was that guy in the chair, with the diploma behind him. Eventually I got my supplements though and I’m okie dokie now. The visit cost me about $8, and the supplements cost me the same (and there will usually be a pharmacy right next door to a doctor’s office).
Second
My second experience was when I got very stubbornly ill about a month ago. It was the beginning of the semester, and I felt pretty bad about missing a day of work (if it was unclear, being sick doesn’t mean missing work in Korea, it means deal with it, because being sick is your fault, how dare you). I walked in, showed the receptionist (a position where it’s rare to find English, though the doctors speak at least a little) my ARC, sat, waited. This doctor spoke incredible English. Incredible medical English. Never had I been gladder to have been raised by a mother whose hobby was medicine.
‘You have rhinitis, yes? You have pyrexia or other pulmonary problem? Ah, okay. You have mucus congest in naval cavity, it go to pharynx. Especially when you sleep. We must clean pharynx so I will prescribe you antibiotic.’
Why yes, my good sir, I do have a fever and a stuffy and runny nose. Yep, sore throat too. It’s your textbook cold. My favorite though was “Do you have many sternutation?” I didn’t even know where to start with that. Who knew it was just fancy medical-speak for ‘sneezing’? End result: a $4 doctor’s fee and shock at how many pills a person can get for 5 bucks.
Third
My third experience is actually of the dental variety, and I’m in the middle of it right now. I’ve known for awhile that I was in need of a root canal, so I took advantage of midterms’ half days to muster up the courage to visit the dentist finally. Really I went to make an appointment for a possible (ok, probable) cavity, and I’ve never been a huge fan (is anybody?) of the dentist’s chair, so when they were all ‘we can do now’, I was a little unnerved.
Nevertheless, in I went. An xray machine that made me sure they were going to blast me into space, sitting in the chair with a girl my age (very nice) prodding through my mouth. She had very good English, despite her claim (the sentence ‘my vocabulary is very limited.’ is a complete oxymoron by the way). Then the head dentist came by, and the two of them gave me the run down. Not wanting to think about the panoramic they just took, I had a couple cavities to be filled, and a root canal and crown in the ‘necessary’ list. Well, the fillings would be covered by insurance, as well as some/most/all? of the root canal procedure, but the crown itself isn’t covered. In the states (to my knowledge), a crown will run around $1,000 with a wide margin on either side, so I wasn’t very thrilled to hear this. However, I asked how much it would cost, and she put on this sad, troubled face, as if unwilling to break the worst. ‘Maybe, 400 thousand won…’ That’s about $350. $351.84, according to today’s rates (as in May 11). I can totally deal with that.
I was less thrilled when she told me the root canal would take 6 ‘treatments’, and even MORE less thrilled when she told me they could (and would) do the first one today. My first experience (that I can remember) at a dentist’s office involved me being a freaked out kid with her first cavity and a dentist who couldn’t give two cents about the patient’s morale. Shortly thereafter I went to another dentist, who pumped me so full of nitrous oxide that I (literally) saw stars (they spun in such a pretty circle, too). So being in Korea (do they even HAVE laughing gas here??), suddenly told to just lean back and open wide again… I wasn’t happy. Then they stuck me with novocain. Which was ironically quite painful. Not looking forward to it again in… 2h36m from now. But once everything numbed away and the shrill sound of the spraying water (drill? what drill? there’s no drill in my mouth!) set in (and gave me a headache), I was pretty bored. I’ve got my ipod ready for today though. And I’d heard such awful stories about novocain and half-numb mouths and uncontrollable drooling. But I drooled not a drop, in fact, the novocain lump wore off completely about 20 minutes after he finished.
Done with all that, I went to pay and make my next appointment (for 2h34 minutes from now). I was prepared to accept the worst with the cost of the xrays and the first treatment (nevermind the consultation part of it all), but turns out the whole shebang only ran me $5. And I got another prescription. 3 pills after every meal, although why they gave me enough for 5 days… I asked the pharmacist what the pills were. ‘antibiotic, painkiller’. So what the heck is the third one?
End take on my limited experience with Korean health care
Despite medical and dental care so far being really very cheap (and still quality), this mild obsession with prescribing pills is very unnerving. Especially when they can’t even tell me what they all are. I tried to tell the dental assistant that I had painkiller at home (asprin), but she frowned and said that maybe I should just take the prescription. To be fair, I asked her what the prescription would be, and if it would be painkillers. She responded with yes painkillers, but also ‘special’ medicine’. I contribute that to the language barrier though. The short of it, if you have to get something done, do it here.
PS- if you’re able (and needy), definitely, definitely buy glasses in Korea. The eye exam is free, cheap frames (in Korea to in America) are MUCH cheaper in price and better in quality, although expensive frames are pretty similar to back home. Lenses though, alas- the financial burden! Sure, my eyes aren’t that bad, and I don’t have anything funky going on, just your standard nearsightedness, but oh, at $10 a lens! I suppose I didn’t need to splurge on that anti-scratch coating (I need things like that…) and UV coating. My frames also cost $10. So to replace my $300 glasses from America, I paid… 10%. They also, of course, throw in a cleaning cloth and a cheap, but fit-for-the-job case.
Journal of a trotamundos 