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Comment by quaquaqua1 | Hacker News Reader

Based on my medical care in the USA I can assure you Asian doctors are,at the very least, at the same level as US doctors. It sounds like an insult to my ears.

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I can tell you from experience that an average doctor in a backwater county of Arkansas is better than an average doctor in the capital city of Laos.

I can also tell from my own experience that an average doctor in Thailand's backwater is better than in the capital of Ireland.

Surely there are some differences between Myanmar and Tokyo right? There’s a lot of countries in Asia.

Ironically some of the SEA countries probably have better medical services than Tokyo.

You guys are criticizing me for calling Asia a monolith but I can assure you the difference between Tokyo and Myanmar is smaller than NYU and the Midwest

Some of the best medical centers in the country are in the Midwest...

Very true. But for every Cleveland Clinic there are a hundred other midwestern cities that lack a similar tier institution, but you might have three similar institutions to CC in NYC or on the west coast to choose from. Having to drive over an hour to see your specialist while you are senile is not ideal, but is a reality for a lot of people in the midwest by virtue of the sprawl and low density of services.

Have you commuted or driven around NYC or LA? Unless you live in the same neighborhood, your commute to the hospital is already going to be 30-60 minutes. Not to mention that of the top hundred hospitals in the country, only a handful are in NYC or LA.

One could make an argument that living in rural areas is worse than urban ones when it comes to access to top medical care, but that has nothing to do with the NYC/LA vs. the rest of the country.

Midwest like the Mayo Clinic?

Will you be living next to Mayo Clinic when you have your heart attack, or something closer to the median hospital in the region?

Like the Cleveland Clinic, Northwesten Medical, or University of Michigan?

There’s some confused thinking in this thread I think.

The 4 hospitals you've named will serve tens of millions of people?

How about the ambulances in Detroit which take 45 mins, or the south Chicago hospitals who refuse to treat gunshot wounds?

Of course there are institutions in the midwest. Some of the best universities are in the midwest. But practically if you lived in, say Lodi, it would take you over an hour to drive to the cleveland clinic main campus to see a specialist. That might be fine while you are 35 but untenable when you are 85.

The services are there but the density is low and the sprawl is wide in the midwest, and your only option is the car or to be entirely dependent on a relative to shuttle you to your appointments as public transit is anemic to non existent outside of chicago.

You are correct indeed. That's why some countries in SEA are major medical tourism destinations for many people from western countries.

Based on where my wife and I are thinking of retiring (Korea, Japan), I believe I said that they were within the intersection of high quality and reasonable cost. You've understood what I've said in exactly the opposite way.

The doctors might be at the same level, but do they have the same access to resources?

The resources can be better. I can't find it right now (and don't have the time to look for it), but there's some interesting studies that show at least in South Korea, there's something like 3-4x the number of medical imaging devices per capita than in the U.S.

Costs are fractions of U.S. costs. For an extraordinary number of medical situations, one could fly to Korea, get treated, stay in hotels or nice recovery centers (medical hotels), and fly back and still spend less money than in the U.S. with very competitive medical outcomes.

That’s entirely believable for developed Asian nations like South Korea, Taiwan, Japan.

For developing countries, you can have very capable doctors, but limited access to technologies.

Asia is a big place. Which area(s) are you referring to?

Strange he didn't see the irony of "insult" when referring to Asia as a monolith

Many people forget that Saudi Arabia (fifth biggest by land) is in Asia too.

I think you guys are missing the joke. The users experience is with the U.S. health system. Because the stereotype and the parent comments have the implication that doctors from Asia are seen as inferior; the joke being that the U.S. sets a fucking low standard for quality of care.

This is indeed exactly what I was trying to say, thank you :)))

> Because the stereotype and the parent comments have the implication that doctors from Asia are seen as inferior;

That's not at all what I said and is exactly the opposite.

Yeah because I'm explaining someone else's joke to you. Like it or not some of the comments here are perpetuating that stereotype. It's also a disservice and naive for one to claim that the there isn't that stereotype.

Can you expand?

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