I went to see the doctor yesterday. During the countless hours that I spent in the waiting room with absolutely fuck-all to do, I got to thinking about the differences between the procedure for visiting a doctor in America and the procedure for visiting a doctor in Japan.

Now, I’ve been to see doctors here in Japan a number of times, but I can hardly be considered an expert. However, to anyone curious about what a typical visit to a Japanese hospital is like, the following should hopefully give you a basic idea [and to all those people who couldn’t care less, feel free to go back to looking at porn now].

For the sake of comparison, here is the typical procedure when seeing a doctor in the States:

1. First, you make an appointment for a specific date and time (i.e., Thursday, January 26th at 1:45pm)
2. On the day of the appointment, you go to the hospital about 10-15 minutes prior to the appointment time in order to register
3. You go directly to the department in which you have the appointment, register and pay the co-payment, usually $10 to $20, depending on the type of insurance you have (assuming you have insurance, that is)
4. Then you sit down in the waiting room and flip through old magazines
5. About 10-15 minutes later, a nurse will call your name and lead to you a small private examination room
6. You will then sit and wait for another five minutes or so
7. Shortly thereafter, the doctor will arrive and will carry out his/her examination in complete privacy
8. If you require medication, the doctor will illegibly write out a prescription for you on a little pad
9. You then part ways and go to the pharmacy, either inside the hospital or elsewhere (if necessary), where a pharmacist will give you your medicine and offer you a private consultation if you have any questions about your medication
10. OK, you’re done!

Now, here is the procedure at a typical Japanese hospital:

1. First you make an appointment for a specific day, however whether or not you can schedule a particular time depends on the hospital — many only have “Reception Hours” (i.e., generally between 11:30am and 3:30pm), the only time during which you’ll be able to see a doctor
2. On the day of the appointment, you go to the hospital and register at the front desk, after which you’ll receive a print-out with your data on it (again, the procedure varies by hospital — some use automated machines, others make you stand in line to deal with an attendant)
3. Then you go to the department in which you have the appointment and give your print-out to the attendant there
4. You take a seat in a (magazine-less) waiting room and wait for anywhere between 1 to 3 hours
5. During that time, you will likely fall asleep and dream about sexy Japanese nurses giving you a sponge bath
6. Just when you reach the point when you’re ready to start randomly taking out other patients in order to shorten the line a bit, you will hear your name being called over the announcement system, requesting you to go sit in the hallway outside of the examination rooms
7. There you will wait for another 20-40 minutes
8. Finally, the doctor will call your name and you will enter the examination room (which isn’t even a “room” per se, but rather a three-walled space, behind which is an open area that connects all of the other adjoining exam rooms)
9. The doctor will carry out his examination while nurses bustle past you in and out of the room
10. If you require medication, the doctor will print out a prescription for you on the computer on his desk
11. Afterwards, you will head back to the main entrance to the payment counter to pay the bill for the day’s visit in total — in cash
12. You can then go to one of the many pharmacies surrounding the hospital (if necessary), where a pharmacist will give you your medicine and loudly ask intrusive questions about your condition in earshot of all of the other people waiting
13. At last, you can finally go home, feeling far worse than you did when you first arrived at the hospital

Yep, there really wasn’t a point to that, except to say that time does not pass any slower than when you are sitting in a hospital waiting room surrounded by elderly Japanese folks who have nothing better to do than stare at the foreigner in their midst.

Oh, and let it be noted that the world can never have too many sexy Japanese nurses!