::A Geek in Korea::

One of the most different things about Korean and American health care is the simplicity. While people in the USA won’t even allow you to walking into an emergency room to receive treatment without filling out forms and swearing your first born in compensation, the vast majority of the time in Korea, you don’t even need to make a reservation for treatment. There are so many doctors competing for your money that service is excellent, it costs nearly nothing depending on the treatment, and you are never waiting too long. As long as it’s preventative or non-life-threatening procedures, Korean health care is top notch for walk in service. I’ve waited longer times at hair salons than most doctors visits.

August 16th of last year, I had a wart/spot/lesion of some sort taken off my arm with a laser. It was actually three small spots near each other. Later, I had another removed from my hand. All of these spots except, the largest one on my arm, never reappeared. The one on my arm reappeared sometime while I was in the United States, so when we came back to Korea we contacted the doctor. He had promised to remove any of the spots if they returned for free. We decided we wanted to take him up on that offer.

They had records of my visit, but told me that their "checkup offer" was only supposed to be for six months or less. We mentioned we had been outside of the country when the spots reappeared. My wife gave the impression we had been gone a little longer than the two week vacation and that was why were were prevented from cashing in on the offer. It seems I’m constantly being given cover stories now that involve lying about my relationship with the United States.

Anyway, after a quick evaluation, I was hurried into the operating room. I had work in an hour, so no delay was spared. I got shot with Novocaine, then immediately got shot with the laser. The shot was much worse than the laser, but I was surprised that they gave almost no time for the drug to take effect. Usually I was given some time so I was good and numb before someone operated on me. Whatever the procedure is, I didn’t feel a thing when the laser was cooking off my spot. This time I remembered not to go breathing in any of the burning flesh smell either. After that I was finished. I have a checkup on Friday, and I have to avoid getting my arm wet for a few days. All of this is free, and the guy is located near the subway line.

This won’t be that difficult, as they are repairing the boiler in my building and there is no hot water for showers for the next three days.