Week 96-97 – Medical Exam – JC Travels -The Blog

Spent last couple of weeks in Seoul – pretty much standard fare, except for my official annual medical exam at the Samsung Medical Center. Could write a book on it – but way more information that anyone would want.

The examination is unlike anything you would get in the U.S., about 25 tests over a six hour period in an assembly line – including MRI’s, ultrasounds, eye tests, exercise physiology, and others. No station took over 5 minutes – had two project managers pushing about five of us through. No results yet except during flexibility testing at exercises physiology I could not touch toes (or get close) and my PM remarked “seriously”. At the dental x-ray station, one of the project managers came to me and said looking at Samsung Galaxy Tablet that the wait was 12 minutes thus I should re-direct to the Heart MRI to maintain schedule as a 12 minute wait is unacceptable. Did the dental x-ray later. Ran into a co-worker and we couldn’t help ourselves to do the math – these test cost $1,000 for anyone to take and in U.S. these would be 15-20 different appointments for at least $15,000 but they are utilizing the people and equipment at about a 10 times efficiency rate as the U.S. – literally a chest x-ray every 3-4 minutes . It is totally private (Korea has universal medical but for better service there is a parallel private system) and very few doctors, all well trained technicians. In my follow up for the detailed results, a doctor will spend 2 hours and review the results with me and all follow up appointments can be scheduled at that time. The purpose is totally preventive.

Outside of that – lot of work hours, a couple of hikes, and some Bond, James Bond. One of the hikes was along a steam for the lantern festival – like a parade where the floats don’t move and the people do.