The Medical Exam

Poor Kyle.  He's the only boy in our school's group of foreign teachers. The other night we went for pizza, and on the way home we stumbled upon a Cold Stone.  Kyle remarked, "Okay now I REALLY feel like I'm with a bunch of girls.  Females go our for ice cream after pizza; men go out for a beer."
Now there's talk of us shopping for him and dressing him up in fashionable Korean clothing...

I felt especially sorry for him when we had to have our medical exams. Imagine 10 or so girls shoved onto a bus then into a hospital not knowing what's about to happen. We'd only heard horror stories from the previous teachers.  And did I mention we weren't allowed to eat after midnight?
The health exam started at 11:30 am.
So 10 women who haven't eaten about to completely have their privacies invaded... there was a lot of whining (mostly from my mouth) :)

First, we were called to the nurse's station.  The first few walked past the rest of us in the waiting room with a small plastic cup.  They then paraded back in front of us with the cup full of urine (no lid was provided, but luckily no one spilled).  The toilets had some contraption attached to the sides with about 20 different buttons in Korean.  While I was in my stall a girl called out, "Are there any other Americans in here? How the hell do you flush this thing!?" There was a lever at the back of the toilet.  The buttons were for heating, cleaning, and rinsing, the seat or you, I'm not sure... Dad, I'm sure you'd have fun with that!

We were warned by other teachers about the strange chest examination.  One girl claimed she thought she had a mammogram.  She said, "I think the door said Mammogram, but I never got smooshed."

Another said, "I was asked to take off my shirt.  Then my other shirt...Meaning my bra" Then she was warned, "Cold!" and something was swiped across her chest... Then she was pinched with something, too?

I was prepared. Not thrilled about taking my shirt and bra off, but ready for the strange exam.  The nurse asked me to take off my shirt and gestured for my bra to come off, too.  I laid down, and she wiped some cold gel on my ankles, wrists, and chest.  Then she put some clamps on my wrists and ankles.  Some small clips were put all around the left side of my chest.  After, she said, "Okay, your EKG is normal." So mammograms aren't required to teach in Korea.

After having my height, vision, teeth, hearing, and weight checked, the school representative checked my medical paper and saw I needed one more test.  He led me to a room where the nurse asked me to go behind the curtain and remove my bra.  I thought, "Okay, I've been topless once so far this morning, guess I'll do it again.  I came out from the curtain and the nurse looked up with wide eyes, saying, "AH! No! Gown! Gown!!"

Oops.  Just inside the curtain was a coat hanger of hospital gowns.  I guess she didn't want to see me topless.  I came out fully covered and had a chest X-ray taken.  No need to be shirtless for that.