When we were researching and preparing to begin our slow-travel lifestyle, we read about a lot of world travellers who like to have their annual health screenings done overseas. A number of cities around the world offer this service, and the one that kept coming up was a hospital here in Kuala Lumpur called Prince Court Medical Centre. It seemed magical to us at the time: you schedule a day to visit the clinic there, and having fasted the night before, you get all your bloodwork done, all your usual annual preventative tests which of course varies depending on your age and gender, plus a few extras that we’ve never had done before, then meet with a doctor to go over the results. Again, all in one day, in one location. And it was easy to book appointments on the day of our choice. How is this possible??
We scheduled our appointments for the day after we arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our flight that evening ended up being delayed by a couple of hours, so we didn’t get into our apartment until late that night, then up early the next morning for our health checkups. Add in the eight hours of fasting we needed to do for our blood tests that morning, and it made for a stressful night/morning. We probably should have given ourselves a buffer day. But we arrived on time at Prince Court, were checked in, and off to the races.
The first test was one I don’t remember ever taking before. The nurse pulled out a surprisingly old, worn hardcover book and showed me several pages ơn which were illustrations to check for color blindness (can you read this green number printed on a red background and so forth). She then checked my vitals, height and weight, and then checked my BMI with a OneBody scanner. I was ushered to another room to look at a traditional eye chart, with my glasses on (my prescription seems to still be valid), then another room to sit in a small booth and check my hearing (good).
I sat in the lobby for maybe two minutes before I was whisked off again to have six or so vials of my blood drawn. She was very good at this — I didn’t feel a thing. Then she handed me a cup and pointed me to the bathroom to fill it for urinalysis.
After that, I sat in another waiting room for a couple of minutes before a nurse summoned me to a room with an examining table and a treadmill. I laid back on the table where she connected a dozen or so electrical leads to my torso and did a resting EKG, then up on the treadmill with quite a steep incline for the stress test, monitoring my heart activity and blood pressure until I reached a target heart rate.
I returned to the waiting room until I was called into a doctor’s office where I met Dr. Noorashikin. She asked me some questions about my medical history, then with a nurse on hand she had me disrobe from the waist down and lie on the examination table for a pelvic exam, breast exam, and Pap smear.
She said see you later, and then sent me to the radiology department where I was given a bag to put my shirt and bra in, as well as a cotton smock, then was taken to a room for my mammogram. I was also then given a white bathrobe to put on over the smock, then asked to sit in a waiting room for a few minutes, after which a nurse came to escort me to the ultrasound room. I removed the bathrobe then laid on an examining table and the ultrasound technician sat next to me and, after a warning that it would be cold, did a thorough check of my entire abdomen with the probe. I finally got to use the toilet, then waited in the hall with my bathrobe back on for ten minutes or so. Trevis texted me and said he was finished with his tests and would wait for me in the cafe. I was ushered into an exam room with a machine I’d never seen before, which turned out to be a Dexa bone density scanner. I laid on a table while the scanner, which said “laser X-ray” on the side, moved above my spine, then one of my legs. Then I sat on a chair with my left arm resting on the table (“please clench your fist”) and it scanned that.
The nurse told me that I could now put my shirt back on and head to the ophthalmologist. I went upstairs to that office where the doctor took some images of my retinas. She said, you’re done with all your tests now! You can go eat some lunch! We were each given a food voucher when we checked in that morning to use at either the cafe or restaurant in the hospital, and having fasted for our blood tests we were both hungry by this point. We headed down to the restaurant where I had lasagna and Trevis got a meal with some chicken and rice.
After lunch the two of us met together with a dietitian who gave us some advice based upon our test results. She said, surprisingly, that Trevis had some borderline low bone density in his leg and discussed the recommended daily intake of calcium for men and for women. Neither of us has been getting enough of that in our diets lately. She also discussed saturated fats and how to avoid those.
We then individually met again with our doctors to go over our test results. Dr. Noorashikin was very happy with my overall health, particularly with my right on target BMI, yay! Then she brought up a few possible issues that she recommended I look into further and gave me referrals to doctors I could meet with for each of those.
Our evaluation of the experience and the cost
Overall, Trevis and I were both really pleased with how our annual check-up day went. It’s extremely convenient to be able to have all of these tests and doctor’s visit done in one day and in one building. In the U.S. the same tests would have been (for me at least, as a woman) at least eight separate appointments spread out all over different parts of the city, and I never would have been able to get the appointments in the same week, let alone the same day. I admit that I probably would not ordinarily get tested so thoroughly every year (the hearing test, for example). It could also be argued that some of the tests we received could unnecessarily scare people by finding possible problems that only after expensive further testing, turn out to be nothing at all. That is possible.
One drawback that we experienced was that not all of our test results were ready yet at the time that we met with our assigned doctors. We both received our reports from the eye doctor in our email the next day noting possible early signs of glaucoma (which Trevis’ doctor at home has already been monitoring for some time). We weren’t expecting any additional test results, so we had already scheduled follow-ups with other specializing physicians. If we had waited a bit before scheduling our follow-ups, we may have been able to coordinate the appointments better, and saved ourselves a trip or two. Maybe you can learn from our mistake there.
How much did we pay? Prince Court offers different packages based upon your age bracket and gender which you can explore for yourself here. We both elected to have their “signature” level of testing which is designed for people 50 and above. Trevis’ visit cost a little bit less than mine since men don’t have to get tested for as many things, so he came in at RM 1,751.90 while mine was RM 1,985.60 — for a shared total of RM 3,703 (USD 950.94). This is the actual, final cost before any insurance. Unlike the U.S., there will be no surprise bills showing up in our mailboxes.
I think that we are happy enough with our experience that we will do it again, probably in a couple of years. Now that we’ve been through it once, I imagine we will be more proactive when making our appointments in choosing which tests we think are valuable to have done to suit our individual needs and medical histories. We both really liked our first impression of Kuala Lumpur, so we will be back for a longer stay at some point in the future no matter what!
