I briefly mentioned in January that our eldest had a broken finger. Well, he's gone and done it again. Same finger, different bone. This time, unlike the last time, we knew exactly what happened. He fell over on the amazing bouncy mountains. So, having made it through 10 years of life with no broken bones (or stitches), he has two minor breaks inside 12 months.
What blew me away was the doctor's visit. I come from the perspective of an Australian Occupational Therapist. A background that gave me the experience of actually treating hand injuries. In Australia this could have been the scenario (if we went the private route):
Make an appointment at GP.
Go to GP who'd send us away for an x-ray somewhere else.
Go for x-ray.
Return to GP who would refer to an Orthopaedic Surgeon or possibly to an OT or hand therapist.
Make an appointment with surgeon.
Go to surgeon get referral to OT. Pay lots of money.
Make an appontment with OT.
Go to OT for a splint. Pay lots of money.
Return to OT a couple of times. Eventually return to the surgeon or the GP.
Phew!! Makes me feel tired just thinking about it. In contrast, this is what happened yesterday:
After two days of pain and swelling we decided to go to the doctor. No referral system, so we went straight to our local Orthopaedic Surgeon (five minute bike ride away). No appointment needed. We got in line and were seen an hour later. The doctor took the x-ray himself in an adjacent room. Looked at it almost straight away, made the diagnosis and then splinted it himself. The he charged us 200 yen (AU$2.40) and told us to come back in a week.
I came home flabbergasted at the speed of it all, plus the fact that I'd just seen a doctor do the job of at least two Australian specialists. Never mind that it cost me less than a cup of coffee.
We've experienced both sides of the Japanese medical system - the side that seems to over-prescribe, be over-cautious and take ages to get things done. Then you unexpectedly see this side of incredible efficiency. Amazing!
The other funny thing that happened was that we'd only just been to this doctor a couple of weeks ago when our middle child had a sore hand after a soccer incident. In that case my husband took him. When the doctor saw two different foreigners coming in the door he got that deja vu look about him. I quickly explained that yes, he'd recently seen another child of the same family.
In contrast to another doctor I saw recently, this guy was great. Even told us about the nicknames that Japanese children give fingers (dad, mum, big brother, big sister, baby).
4 comments:
we seriously have a crazy medical system here in Aus!
I don't know about craziness. My wife was on playground duty at her school and got knocked over by a kid chasing a soccer ball. She fell down an embankment and broke her wrist. The school had her in an ambulance and to the hospital in a couple of hours. A hand surgeon who had recently worked on her shoulder was there at the time. He asked her to come to his surgery next day without an appointment. She got examined, a scan, a temporary plastic cast. She'll be operated on early next week. And all on workers comp. So if you are going to get injured it pays to do so in the right circumstances.
Yep, I'd have to agree with you Ken. It is tough to arrange a deliberate accident, though...
She's very talented. That was the day I was waiting for my book to arrive on the truck from the printer. She just arranged an accident to take the attention away from me!
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