When I started work in Rio, my company provided me with a list of English speaking doctors across a variety of specialties and I have needed to visit a couple since I arrived. Firstly, the great thing about doctors in Brazil is that you don’t need to be referred to a specialist through your GP first, you can book in directly yourself. This may not sound like that great of an advantage but given how difficult I find calling up a practice and making an appointment in Portuguese over the phone, the fewer I need to do the better!
Of the doctors I have seen so far, to be honest, they didn’t speak much English but I found that I was able to explain generally the purpose of the appointment (where I had to use English they seemed to understand more than they spoke) and understood most of what the diagnosis was after a few “desculpe, nao entendi. Pode repetir, por favor?” The only downside has been the amount of waiting around that I have had to do. For one appointment, I was sat in the waiting room for almost 3 1/2 hours! Lucky it was at the end of the day and I had no where urgent I needed to be!
Also, I am not sure if it is because of my health insurance or a cultural thing for Brazil, but in my experience, each doctor has been really enthusiastic to send me away for a variety of tests as part of the diagnosis. Both times the tests prescribed were not all 100% related to what I was speaking to the doctor about but were nevertheless recommended.
I guess as a result of the large amount of precautionary testing being undertaken by Cariocas, I found it actually quite difficult to then get an appointment at one of the various scanning and testing laboratories. The most common chain of laboratories that I have come across is Labs D’Or. I used them for a number of scans and thought they were run incredibly efficiently, although I couldn’t get in to the one closest to my house.
Personally, I was really happy to take the time and book in for all of the things the doctors have recommended as I have never been tested, prodded, analysed and scanned like this before. In the end I hope I will be left with incredible piece of mind! Although I do worry slightly how, with the language barrier, my doctor would break any serious medical news to me. God willing that won’t ever be a problem.
Rio... One Last Adventure 