South Korea Medical Tourism Diary. Part 9: Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital

Continued from Part 8: Parkside Rehabilitation Hospital and Return to Seoul

November 30, 2007

I woke up around 3 am, which seems to be about my usual hour this week. Rather than trying to stay in bed and adjust to the time zone I decided to get up and do some work before the pool opened at 6. Who wants to be completely adjusted before going back anyway? It was early afternoon in the US so I was able to reach a number of people on my list. While overseas I've been using Skype to make phone calls. My MacBook's built-in microphone and speaker work fine and the price is great; even calling out to regular landlines is a few cents per minute at most.

The pool supplies a kind of abacus that people use as a lap counter. There are 10 white beads on one side and 5 red ones on the other. People flip a white one each time they get to the wall and then a red one at ten. It's an interesting idea, although I swim by time rather than number of laps. It might be easier to have 9 white beads, and just move a red one every 10 rather than both a white and red at the same time. I suppose it could be confusing either way.

On this, my last day in Korea we went to Soon Chun Yang University Hospital in Bucheon, which is about 1 hour from downtown Seoul and a little more than 30 minutes to Incheon International Airport. Soon Chun Hyang is a large, busy hospital with 991 beds and a 90%+ occupancy rate. The inpatient area was buzzing, much like at Ajou University. One thing I liked at Soon Chun Yang, which was also present elsewhere, was an automated pay station in the lobby for patients to settle their accounts. Patients wave their identity cards near the sensor and are presented with their bill. Some other hospitals had automated check-in systems, too.

This hospital was perhaps step behind Ajou in its readiness to serve international patients. There was less English language signage than in some other places, less spoken English, and greater use of paper charts instead of electronic medical records. There doesn't seem to be a major expat community in the area, which is one explanation.

We had a tour of a new outpatient clinic in the hospital, which focuses on health screening. The long, hallway/lobby where patients waited in between services was beautiful and spacious. From there we walked into the outpatient endoscopy center, which was extremely modern and impressive. The head nurse, who speaks excellent English and is involved in conferences and training programs around the world, showed us around. There are incense burning lanterns along the hallway, which provide a nice effect. In the waiting room there was something I've noticed elsewhere: a large-screen monitor with a real-time, split screen view of all the endoscopies that are underway. If you want to see someone's insides, this is the place. The idea is that patients' families can see what's going on while it happens. On the other hand, when I asked I was told that the patient could ask not to have their scoping shown on the screen.

We visited some patient rooms, which were quite nice. As is the case elsewhere, most patients opt to stay in 6-bed rooms. There are private rooms ($150/night) and deluxe private rooms, too ($200 and up), which would probably be more attractive to foreign patients. The more basic private room that we saw had showers in the bathrooms, but not dedicated shower stalls. In other words you shower yourself off in the bathroom and the water empties into the drain on the floor. This isn't such a big deal, but you'd probably want to know about it ahead of time. Patients in the group rooms go out to separate shower rooms on the hall.

Then we went to a conference room where we heard an overview presentation of the hospital. One thing that caught my attention was a claim to be one of the top hospitals in the country in MI rankings. Apparently there is a government agency that collects information on hospital quality. I'm hoping to find out more about the rating system and what reports are available.

The hospital is known for its plastic and reconstructive surgery as well. Just before lunch Kim Young-Bae, MD, PhD from the plastic and reconstructive department gave a presentation on the various operations done there. A lot of Dr. Young-Bae's work is cranio-facial. We saw surgeries to correct congenital deformities as well as cosmetic alterations of the cheeks, jaw, nose and eyes. (I'd never thought that much about how these surgeries are done. After seeing several pictures of people having their whole face peeled back to be worked on I now have a better idea.)

Pricing for plastic surgery is comparable to Central American rates. Because of the hospital's experience in working with Asian features it seems to me that the best opportunities lie with attracting patients from elsewhere in Asia and possibly Asian Americans living in the US.

After lunch, a photo op, and a nice departing gift, the hospital drove me to the airport in a large, luxurious Korean car (a Chairman) of a type that is not sold in the US. There is a dedicated road to the airport and we arrived in under 40 minutes. I had noticed that a lot of the cars in Korea have large video screens on the dashboard, and wasn't sure why these GPS navigators were so big. This was the first time I'd been a passenger in a car with a big screen and it turns out that these are TVs in addition to being navigators. There is a service, which beams shows right to the device. No thanks.

See Part 10: Return to Boston and summary thoughts