Quick impression: Medical privacy

Today was our medical checkup. Get rid of that image in your head of me going into a room by myself with a nurse taking my vitals and a doctor doing a followup after the nurse is done. That is what they do in America, land of medical privacy. This is Korea.

We got with our subgroup and lined up and moved through various stations. First blood pressure, then height/weight, color blindness, vision, and next was a blood draw. So far so good. Oh I also forgot to mention that this was in one room where there were 60 people in one massive line, right on top of other people. It didn't really bother me until I took the vision test and realized that I could use some glasses. I took the test in front of everyone else. Next we got a blood draw and then we went to the water bottle substation. This is where you drink a whole bottle of water because we'd been forbidden to consume anything since the previous midnight and they wanted to make sure that we could pee for them. Into a paper cup. That had no lid. After filling the cup with the appropriate amount, I carried it back to the nurse, careful not to bump my open topped cup and splash any of the 100 people all around me lest I spill my pee. The nurse took my cup, did a quick test by dipping a stick to test for sugar, protein, etc. and threw the stick into the garbage. Well she tried to at least. The dipstick stuck to her glove and landed on the papers that I had been carrying to every station and now my medical documents had a big spot of pee on them. She smiled and I was on my way to the next station, soiled papers in hand.

Next I went to the doctor which was thankfully in a different room. He spoke no English and his translator was sitting there with perhaps another friend of hers. She told me to tell the doctor if I had any issues that I wanted to discuss...I didn't, and I was on the the final station: The chest x-ray. I got to the bus parked outside and got to the x-ray as soon as I could. I wanted to finish because after fasting I was famished. As soon as the tests were over, we got a snack and then went to eat lunch.

There is no way this would fly in the states. People freak out about medical issues. We've got HIPPA laws and ridiculous lawsuits in the US. I was put off at first when I got into the long line of people getting medical exams out in the open, but something about the communal experience was oddly comforting.

I am still loving this place. I have had a perpetual smile on my face and whenever I go out I still get giddy with excitement thinking about the prospect of finding something new and tasting a food I have never experienced before. I don't know if they are drugging the food I am eating or if the kimchi is just that good...