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American Hospital of Paris (8)
Patients and their characteristics in Paris
Japanese residents in Paris can be categorized to several groups;
business people and their family members, Japanese government employees,
Japanese employees of international organizations (UNESCO for example)
and students. The official number of the Japanese residents in Paris
was 30,000 when I was there. Japanese travelers to Paris, estimated
as one million per year can be added as potential patients. Those Japanese
tourists are relatively young and basically healthy. Therefore, the
most of the reasons for consultation were diseases like common cold.
Psychosomatic problems may be the characteristics of the practice in
Paris. Even though patients came to me complaining of cold symptoms,
psyhcosomatic symptoms like anxiety, insomnia, irritability and frequent
diarrhea could be found often. Further interview revealed that the cause
of those psychosomatic symptoms was the incompatibility with French
culture including French language most of the time. It happened most
commonly among Japanese housewives. The typical Japanese husband works
hard till late at night and has no time to communicate with his wife.
In his office he can use Japanese with his fellow Japanese and communicate
in English with his business partners. Meanwhile, his wife staying at
home has to do everyday shopping using French and struggle with French
neighbors in case of things like water leakage from the ceiling, a routine
in the old apartments in Paris.
The most severe case I consulted was a housewife with a history of the
fainting several times. She developed palpitation and dyspnea when she
rode on a subway. She then became nauseated and got off the next station,
where she fainted and was brought to the nearby hospital ER. I advised
her to use bus instead of subway, which made the situation better. She
might have had claustrophobia which is a fear to be in a small, closed
place.
Japanese students in Paris studied mostly French language, music and
arts and most of them were women. Since most of them were young women,
there were quite a few consultations concerning birth control and abortion
for unwanted pregnancies. Many of them looked intelligent and cool,
who never was involved with illegal abortion at least in Japan. In reality,
however, they fell in love with French guys just several months after
arrival.
(Their length of stay in France was a year in average. ) For French
guys it was just a love game. I thought it was the result of the combination
of poisonous part of French culture, attractiveness of the French guys
and naivite of the Japanese girls.
Many patients came to ask for certificates of many kinds. The most common
certificate was a health certificate both in French and Japanese. There
was no problem with making one in Japanese.
I asked my secretary to make a standard certificate in French. I made
each certificate by making minor changes on the standard form in French.
I charged 500 francs (10,000 yen) for a certificate, which was the same
fee of the regular consultation.
I felt a little bit guilty for the charge at first. The guilt disappeared
completely after the follwing event. I went to Japanese Embassy one
day to get a certificate. I waited 2 days and received a pre-printed
certificate. It costed 6, 000 yen!
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E-mail:kidot@momo.so-net.ne.jp