Tom Aaron asked: Some Americans in Japan avoid going to a doctor if they have a cold. Japanese eyes may grow larger as they remark on this to other Japanese and ask other Americans why not. My reply, that you need seven days to get well if you take cold medicine and a week if you do not, meets with blank looks.
When I first started going to the doctor’s in Japan, visiting a doctor and getting medicine for a cold was substantially cheaper than going to a pharmacy and buying over the counter cold medicine that was much weaker. You would see your doctor and the receptionists, who also may act as nurses, would give you your medicine. After some years, due to a government push to reduce medicine sales by having medications purchased at pharmacies, not from doctor’s offices, pharmacies sprang up like mushrooms next to doctor’s offices. Prices seemed to me to have increased. Now, going to a pharmacy and buying cold medicine could be cheaper, but people are accustomed to going to the doctor.
Some doctors offer appointments but many do not. Being able to stop at the doctor’s whenever you want is tremendously convenient, but spending three hours for a three-minute visit with the doctor is not. Timing your visit is important. Many larger hospitals with specialists attract an older crowd. Go in the morning, with or without an appointment, and the wait can be endless. Go in the afternoon, with or without an appointment and you can see a specialist, pay, get your prescription, pick up your medication at the pharmacy in the same building, and be on your way in an hour if all goes well.
At smaller doctor’s offices, especially those that see many children, the mornings can be very busy, but when there are no colds going around the offices can be empty. If you go in on a busy morning, you may have a long wait. Doctor’s offices are usually open in the morning, close for lunch, and then open again in the early afternoon. If you go in the morning and the doctor’s office is crowded, you can often write your name down for the afternoon slot and be seen quickly if you arrive first thing in the afternoon. Another way to be seen quickly is to go early in the morning before the doctor opens, go in the office, and write your name on the list. Yes, the office is open even though nobody is there. Know the system and act to avoid waiting for hours and hours.
Over the years the number of pharmacies selling prescription medicine has ballooned. The government has encouraged this direction to discourage doctors from over prescribing
medicines, resulting in a pharmacy next to or across the street from many doctor’s offices. Each small pharmacy, primarily serving the patients of the doctor next door or across the street, usually has between two and four people working in the pharmacy at any one time.
Japanese, like Americans and other Westerners, believe in hand washing to prevent colds, but there are at least four major differences: masks, gargling, carrying on to show their fighting spirit and not burdening others, and IV (intravenous) cocktails. In Japan, people frequently wear surgical masks due to colds. Some of them are wearing masks to protect themselves against the germs that give them colds, while others have colds and are wearing masks so they don’t give their colds to others. Unrelated to colds, many people with allergies wear masks to protect themselves from allergens. The masks may or may not be effective and the placebo effect may or may not work. Regardless, a Hello Kitty surgical mask on a small child is a sight that one will remember for a long time.
Japanese also swear by gargling to prevent colds and to get better quickly when you do have a cold. Some doctors argue that gargling with water is useless, but gargling with green tea protects people from colds. Whenever anything is health related, the green tea lobby is always nearby to promote the real or imaginary health benefits. People in Japan who have colds are not entitled to time off. They must go to work or school, carrying on to show their fighting spirit and not burdening others.
Nobody discourages sick people from going to work or school and little attention is paid to the colds they spread. With chicken pox or measles, of course, people do stay home. Schools actually keep track of the number of days students miss; students who are not absent for an entire year are commended. Some students even go to junior high for three years without missing a single day and receive an award. Some of the students who go to school with raging fevers may be after such awards.
The last of the four major differences I will discuss here is the IV cocktail, full of all sorts of nutrients and other wonderful things, guaranteed to speed your recovery. Catch a cold, see the doctor, and get an IV. That will get you through the day. Some doctors don’t always offers IVs to people with colds, but if you really want one, just ask the doctor. The doctor will usually oblige.
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