Korean Physical

As part of our employment here at DIS and to live in Korea, we needed to have a physical done in order to get our alien cards (or nice little ids that allow us to go to the doctors here). So we took a taxi to Fatima hospital, here in Daegu Korea, and headed for the International Wing (which is more like an office than a wing, but I digress). We waited in the office for roughly 30 minutes after having our height, weight, and blood pressure taken -- then, one by one, we went to see the international doctor, who was a very nice Korean doctor who spoke English. This meeting consisted of him asking if I had any pain, any physical issues, and then laying down so that he could listen to my heart, lungs, and check my internal organs.

Once we had all been "felt up", we went with our Korean-Student-Translators, who were students in the area that spoke both Korean and English, which was very very helpful. We attempted to go to the dentist office, but were told there would be a 20 minute wait, so we instead went to get blood draw and give a urine sample. Anyone who knows me knows I hate needles, so I had to look away and think happy thoughts while they took my blood. I then had the nice Korean nurse tell me (through a translator) that I had to pee in the "Hello Kitty" cup, up to the "Kitty's eyes". That is where I met the Korean squat pot, or modern hole in the ground that I had to pee over. Once I met the "kitty requirement", we were off to the EKG test, which was pretty normal, and then to the eye and ear doctors.

The ear doctor looked in both ears, asked if I had any pain, discharge, or ringing, and then told me I was all set. The eye doctor was a little more rigorous, which consisted of reading off numbers from the eye chart, getting air blown into my eyes from the machine, and then reading numbers out of a book to check for color-blindness.

We then returned to the dentist, which took me 30 seconds and consisted of listening too "you have a little plaque, brush harder, all set". Our final trip was to the chest x-ray area, where I stood against a machine with my shirt lifted,and waited the 2 seconds it took to take a picture. We then were told to come back in three days to get our results.