The medical system in America is broken. How do I know this? I know this because when I got a physical a few months ago in America, it was not fun. Not fun at all. First of all, there is a long wait. I had to wait about 30 minutes just to see the doctor. Once the doctor was ready, I followed him to a room where I waited more. Everything was done basically in the same room and everything was rather boring. Who would want to spend money to wait in line to do something boring? Yes; America's medical system is definitely broken.
Contrast all of that to China. I could tell getting a physical was going to be super fun as soon as I got to the clinic. There were kids and people running around, just how you would see at any other super fun place like Disneyland (which really isn't that fun, but most people reading this don't know that yet). You know you are in for a treat when you see people running around to and fro like crazy.
After filling out the necessary paperwork, and spending "face to face" time with the girl who would be taking my money, we began our journey of getting a physical. I went with Jerry, my American friend who teaches at the same school as me, and Ellen, the girl assigned to take us to get our physicals. On the back of our paperwork is a checklist of things that have to be done; they correspond with different rooms in the clinic and you are free to do them in any order you would like. Just like an amusement park, we decided to fist pick the rides (rooms) with the shortest lines.
The first room was the eye room which had no line at all. On the desk was a fun little book that we got to read to the nurse. It was a color blind test. I have never done one of those besides in random magazines. I am pretty sure that I am not color blind. Note to the makers of color blind test books; you should try not to make your 2's looks like Z's. Maybe you should just omit those all together.
Success! I can see! Next room was the "guess your weight and height" room, just like at Lagoon minus the stuffed animals. They had a cool futuristic scale for us to stand on. It displayed your weight, then used lasers to determine your height. Maybe soon they will be able to do that with weight too! When Jerry stood on the scale, I overheard the nurse say "so tall, yet so skinny." I thought that pretty odd coming from a Chinese lady who was probably about half his weight.
For all the hype the X-ray room got, it really was not that much fun. Basically, you just walk in the room and the guy points to a place for you to stand. At that point, he positioned my arms, then kind of flung me against the wall so that my chin and elbows were up against the wall to fully expose my chest to the X-ray machine. I was kind of peeking out of the side of my face to see what was going on, but the guy left the room and I just stood up against the wall feeling like a dweeb with my head pointing up and my chin pinned against the wall. The man came back and gave me a large plate to take into the examining room. I remember in America it took a few days for the X-ray to be looked at and evaluated. Here they just looked at it on the spot, signed my paper and had me on my merry way.
Next up. ECG. The electrocardiogram is a way to measure your heart or something like that so they can know if you heart is still beating and you are dead or not. I remember not liking this in America because they taped probes to my chest, and when I pulled off the tape, plenty of chest hair came off with it. Not the most fun of experiences. Here in China, they have figured out a better way to do it. Metal suction cups! They have these tiny metal suction cups connected to wires to measure the electrical pulses(?) of my heart. When the nurse started putting them on, some would stay for a few seconds, but most almost immediately came off because my "xiong mao tai duo." Yes; I don't think they were used to doing this test on people who actually had chest hair. At first the nurse spent some time trying to rearrange the suction cups into areas where they might stick, but eventually she gave up. At this point she used her incredible nurse skills to hold several probes in place with one hand, then stretched her arms out as much as possible so she could reach the computer with her other hand. She started running the tests, but it didn't work because some of the probes were still not stuck on me. Turns out, when the machine gets turned on and the probes are not completely on you, it gives you a nice shock! That was fun! Eventually the nurse called in Ellen to come help out. It was kind of awkward having a couple of girls holding these suction cup probes in place on my chest while running tests. But we got it done, and I have a heart! I am not dead!
On to the blood and urine samples! Yay! This was a fun one, so there was obviously a bit of a line with overly excited people waiting for someone to stick a needle in their arm. I could hardly wait! While waiting in line, I got to read over some of the informative cartoon posters on the wall. I couldn't really read much of the Chinese, but because of the detailed cartoons, I could usually figure out what was going on. Pretty detailed cartoons. Perhaps a bit TOO detailed. Yikes. When it was finally my turn to have my blood drawn, I just sat down. I can't really say all that went on because I was looking away the whole time so I didn't see the needle. I didn't faint! Success! The urine samples were pretty interesting. They gave me a specialized cup with a number written on it with permanent marker. When done, you are to place the sample on a rack with everyone else's sample from the day. Kind of odd to just have them all sitting out there with no one watching. I imagine it would be pretty simple (but also pretty gross) to switch your sample with someone else's.
The last room I knew would be fun, because this was the first room with more than a five-minute wait. The ultrasound room! I thought that it would be pretty easy to determine if I was pregnant or not, but I guess in China things are a bit different, so they wanted to give me the ultrasound anyhow. Fortunately this time my chest hair did not have any ill effects on the test and they were easily able to determine that I was not pregnant. Phew! I was worried about that one. I guess they must check for other things too because they checked in areas in my chest where I am sure a baby would never live.
Sadly, the ultrasound concluded my fun day at the clinic to get my physical. I must say though; it was fun enough that it was definitely worth the 280 yuan ($45) I paid to have it done. Perhaps not cheaper than Disneyland, but certainly more exciting.
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