Cross-cultural communication （40）　

40）A holiday turned into a disaster
My mobile phone rang during the evening clinic. It was English with a French accent. It was a male Air France crew member. It sounded like he was calling from a train. He said that he had fallen on the steps of a temple in Kyoto and bruised his left shoulder, and that he could no longer raise his left arm. He was currently on his way to Osaka and asked me to do something about it.

After the evening consultation at the clinic, I tried to contact the patient, but for various reasons I was unable to get in touch with him. So, since it was certain that he needed to see an orthopedic surgeon, whether for a dislocation or a fracture, I decided to at least find a hospital that would accept him. I tried contacting five or six major hospitals in Osaka City, but they all refused to accept him, saying that there was no orthopedic surgeon on duty.

I left a message at the hotel where he was staying with Air France, and waited for a reply from him the next day. I was contacted before noon the next day, and with the help of a Japanese crew member, he was taken to a private hospital near the hotel, where he had an X-ray taken by the doctor on duty, and was given first aid treatment after being diagnosed with a dislocation. He needed an English translation of the Japanese medical certificate he had been given at the hospital, so he decided to ask me to visit my office in the afternoon.

I was worried that he might be angry because I hadn't been able to contact him last night, but the patient who came to my office with the Japanese female crew member was in surprisingly good spirits. When I asked him about it, he told me that the private hospital he had visited in Kita Ward, which had a long history, had an orthopedic surgeon as the owner and director, so there was an orthopedic surgeon on duty who was able to quickly diagnose and treat him. It seems that private hospitals are more flexible than core hospitals when it comes to providing medical care at night.

When I casually asked him if he had time to go exploring Kyoto, he told me that there had been a crew strike in France, and that the decision had been made to suspend flights for a week, so he had ended up taking a week's vacation in Osaka under the pretext of temporary standby. It's a story that's very French. But was this vacation a good thing or a bad thing? He didn't seem to care at all, so I guess it's fine.

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