I have been making arrangements to consult doctors and possibly undergo medical examinations as well as treatments at the NF2 Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School. The process involved registering me as an MGH patient, registering with the International Patient Office, providing them with my personal information and medical records and arranging for my medical reports from House Clinic and the U.S. National Institutes of Health to be sent to MGH before I could set up appointments to see the doctors at Harvard.
The preparatory procedures may be lengthy and time-consuming, but from my experience with U.S. medical institutions, this will prove to be worth the while.
House Clinic, House Research Institute in Los Angeles has records of my medical treatments from 2004 to 2010, while the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda has some extensive medical reports between October 2010 and October 2011. When MGH physicians receive all my medical records, they are likely to vet them through and through. That’s how U.S. doctors work, or at least those that I choose to see.
So far, I haven’t met a local doctor who is prepared to do that. Or maybe they are simply not trained to appreciate a patient’s medical history. I don’t know…
Yvonne, in Malaysia, you have to do all over again, from scan, medical check up and etc because they are not trained with the concept “Transfer Medical History of the Patient” from one hospital to another. It is convenient for the doctor/the hospital but not for the patients.
I am not too sure it is for most doctors in the east. Sorry not discriminating all doctors. But I felt that hardly there is doctor requesting to read case history for so many years. I personally have seen doctors or specialist too busy to handle cases e.g even a simple mental illness case to identify the root cause and diagnosis from there or investigate further.
They simply refer the patient elsewhere (so the patient has to consult many opinions and end up confused and exhausted having to explain details again) or take operative reason and decision into taking medication just like common law (decisions made based on previous cases) or resume medical procedure.
Maybe govt should fund more research in hospital which I find US has quite a no. of research facility that Asia lack, both in funding maybe or expertise.
Syahidah, this reminds me that I had a friend with MRIs from the U.S. with her. But when she went to a particular neurosurgeon in KL for help in getting the government to assist in paying for her treatment, the radiologist that this neurosurgeon worked with asked her to do a new MRI as they thought the one she did at the U.S. national institutes of health was not clear. That’s quite surprising because the U.S. NIH has more advanced medical diagnostic technologies than us.
I am sure you have realized that Dr. Friedman in L.A. could diagnose our condition even with low grade MRI scans from local government hospitals.
Evangeline: There are many medical research institutions in the U.S. and most of them are private establishments – they raise funds and fund their own research. Then, when they discover something or invent something, they put that knowledge into practice through their clinical services (translational research). So it boils down to whether the institution wants to excel or how they want to be excellent.
So far, in most KL medical institutions, I observe that their idea of excellence is in furnishing the building to resemble a five star hotel.
Per capita, the Malaysian government spends more on healthcare and research than many Western countries. But the outcomes are poorer.
It’s not the amount of money that’s being spent that’s the issue. It’s how it’s being spent.