Byeongwon 2

I finally saw an orthopedic hand specialist at Severance Hospital. The doctor I'd been seeing before, a pain and rehabilitation specialist, decided I should see him because of some abnormalities with my finger's recovery. This new doctor thought that the paraffin wax treatments and physical therapy exercises wouldn't be useful anymore. He said it might still be helpful to put some metal rods inside the fingers to act as internal splints for a few months, but he couldn't guarantee improvement. I opted not to do that. He also suggested going back to wearing splints at night might help, although my physical therapist in the States thought that there was no point in further wearing the splints. So who knows?

The interesting thing about my visit to the orthopedic hand specialist was the high-tech screen in the hallway outside his office. It looked like this:


Patient names are listed on the left, in the order they will be seen. Next to the first name it says "When the current patient exits, you may go in." Next to the second name it says "Next in order." Next to the third name, which is mine, it says "Please wait just a short time."

How is patient privacy protected? Most Korean names consist of a one-syllable surname and a two-syllable given name. On the screen, the second syllable of the given name is replaced with "*". This is sufficient to disguise the identity of someone. Most Koreans share one of a few common surnames, so eliminating the second syllable of the given name is the equivalent of identifying someone as "J. Smith". The last four digits of the patient's hospital ID number are also listed.

This system completely breaks down with my Western name, though! It appeared on the screen as "SLEUTHE LANC*".