Medical Examinations

Here I am at the medical clinic. No appointment necessary, you just walk in and get in line with all the other locals who are there to get examinations. When you come to China longer than 30 days you have to get medical examinations before you are able to enter the country. I assume that this must be done to know your medical history before you enter the country and to make sure you do not bring any diseases into the country....this medical check includes having a x-ray of your chest.  Well the medical exam you get before you enter China isn't enough!  Once you are in the country you have to pay for another examination to be conducted by the Chinese doctors, just in case you might have contracted TB from the time you got your ex-ray in American to the time you arrive in China. :)

Coming to China has given me several doses of radiation I would have liked to live without.....The medical process is like a game of..."Guess your examination". I was brought in to 8 different rooms, each with a different doctor who specialized in some medical procedure, including a dental check, ultra sound and ??? I don't know what that other stuff was for. You are given an examination document that must be stamped off by each doctor. The experience is not overly "sterile", not like what you would expect in America. The worst experience for me was entering one of examination rooms, and the doctor instructed the patient who was in line behind me to come in the room with me!!! What! Oh yes, this is China baby and we make it work...no special privacy concerns here. I am lying there on the table, the doctor instructs me to pull my dress up!!! Uhh...I'm thinking but there is this stranger standing at the foot of the table looking at me. What do you mean pull my dress up? Oh, I forgot, you don't speak English and I certainly don't speak a lick of Chinese at this point to even ask you to please let me undress in private...I'm thinking, dang, this is messed up. So, there I am, forced to bare my essentials in front of this complete stranger because if I don't do it, then I will have to leave the country, and at this point I've already taken two doses of radiation to get this far so I might as well just go for it. Okay, so I pull my dress up and look with complete humiliation and close my eyes. I wait while the doctor rubs some oil concoction on my legs and stomach, then she attaches some clamps on the well oiled areas.....I wait, not sure what she is testing, then I get up, pull my dress down and get the heck out of that room and off to the next room to get the next doctor's stamp.....

The Chinese sure do know how to conduct medical examinations! Get em' in and get em' out! The exam cost me about $60, a lot cheaper than in America.