South Korea Medical Tourism Diary. Part 3: Yeson Voice Examination Center

Continued from Part 2: Inha University Hospital

November 27, 2007

Our next stop was an interesting place: the Yeson Voice Examination Center. The clinic is located in a high-end medical office building and was reminiscent of the Asia-Pacific Medical Center in Singapore with an elegant lobby. There was a separate, glassed in lecture room/waiting room off the lobby where Phantom of the Opera was playing on a projection TV as we walked in. The Voice Examination Center is targeted at voice professionals: singers, actors, news anchors who have problems with their voices.

The center has a wide variety of high tech equipment for voice analysis. You can see pictures of me reading into the microphone for a sound analysis, using the mask to see how strong and long-winded my voice is, and then having the stroboscopic camera shoved down my throat to check out my larynx.

The technician who was doing the testing seemed a little nervous dealing with me. Although she's used to dealing with Asian actors and other celebrities I guess she'd never seen an American podcaster like myself, before! She would have been right to be nervous if she'd known how strong my gag reflex is. She found out as soon as she tried to shove the camera down my throat. She brought in the center's director, Hyung Tae Kim, MD, PhD, who did his best to get a clear shot of me. He did a good job but decided not to press his luck by following up with the high speed camera. Dr. Kim is an accomplished surgeon: trained in Korea with post-doctoral work at the NIH, where he won a Special Act Award in 2002.

I'll get my results back in a month or so. If the results are poor I can blame it on jet lag and the sniffles.

The center is set up with a variety of exam rooms --one with a grand piano-- and operating rooms. Very modern and impressive.

After my exam Dr. Kim presented a series of slides and videos explaining the philosophy of the center and demonstrating a variety of advanced microsurgical techniques. These included ways to remove polyps and nodules without creating scar tissue and a novel vocal cord shortening technique for voice feminization for male to female transgender patients.

Although the center did not seem accustomed to dealing with overseas patients, I'm optimistic that they will be able to build that segment of the business. The high-end setup and innovative techniques should be attractive to overseas voice professionals and it wouldn't surprise me to see patients going to Thailand and elsewhere for transgender surgery making a stop in Korea to change their voice.

At least from a US standpoint, prices are extremely reasonable:

• $1500 for microlarnygeal surgery, which includes everything (pre/post test, surgeon's fee, anesthesiologist's fee, OR fee, etc.)
• $2000 for Pulse Dye Laser surgery
• $4000 for voice feminization surgery
• $250 for a larnygeal Botox injection
• $500 for a comprehensive voice examination with all the equipment

See Part 4: Wooridul Spine Hospital