Bangkok Docs

A normal person comes to Bangkok to see the Grand Palace, the reclining Buddha, the floating market, and some of the other key sites of the city. This was my second visit to Bangkok, and I still haven’t managed to see any of those sites. I decided to try something new this visit – medical tourism. It has been 10 years since my last doctor’s check-up, and I just turned 30, so I decided I would take advantage of the inexpensive healthcare here in Thailand and get a full health screening. In other words, I just spent my only day in Bangkok at a hospital.

The experience was worthwhile though because I was able to get my medical needs taken care of at a very low price, and I was able to see what the world of medical tourism looks like firsthand. Bumrungrad Hospital is considered one of the best hospitals in Thailand if not Asia. They have been putting a lot of effort into promoting themselves as a medical tourism destination; i.e. foreigners that can’t afford procedures at home can travel to Bangkok and get them done at a top-quality facility for a fraction of the price. The hospital even has its own full-service residence, where one can live in a 5-star suite complete with hospital bed.

I went to have an “Executive Health Screening.” Upon arrival, it took me a while to find my way to the correct building, but there were staff everywhere that spoke English and were happy to direct me. Once in the correct building, I made my way to the “sky lobby” where I provided my passport and contact details and was issued a laminated patient card that I can use on future visits. I then spent the day being ushered from place to place throughout two stories of the building being administered test after test. What fascinated me most was the sheer quantity of patients with whom the nurses were dealing. There had to be at least 50 patients in each waiting room at any given time. On this visit, most of them happened to be Arabs on their post-Ramadan vacation to Thailand. The nurses were calling out names one after one practically non-stop. The nurses recognized me as one of the few non-Arabs there, so they always came to find me without yelling out my name all the time. It was impossible for them to do the same with the mysterious black figures gliding through the hallways with their eyes peering from behind the niqab.  One woman, rather than constantly removing and retying her niqab, simply wrapped her hijab entirely around her face, which made her look like some villain from the ninja turtles.  

Overall, the experience was still very much the same as going to the doctor in most developed places, but I did get far more tests done for a price I could only dream of back in the States. After several hours of tests, I was able to sit with the doctor and discuss all of the results; the detailed report will be sent to me by email. It is quite an impressive system that must make them a fair amount of money based on the number of patients they were churning out.

Once my day at the hospital was done, I grabbed a taxi to a tailor that the hotel had recommended. I don’t think there is ever a time that Bangkok does not suffer from horrible traffic, but if there is, it certainly is not Monday afternoon. I was able to pick out some fabrics to have a few suits and shirts made, and the tailor is stopping by my hotel this evening to do a fitting before I jet off to Myanmar in the morning. The tailor's driver took me back to the river, where I grabbed a boat back to my hotel's dock. I have to leave at 4:30AM to make sure traffic doesn’t make me late for my flight to Yangon, but I am excited to see what Myanmar has to offer.