Medical History and Medications: What to Prepare Before Your Consultation

There is a set of questions almost every medical team asks. What are you currently taking, what have you been diagnosed with, and what procedures have you had before. This is not paperwork for its own sake. Whether a procedure is possible, and how it would be approached, often turns on the answers.

The trouble is that this confirmation frequently begins only after you land. If you do not know the exact name of a medication, if there are no records from your home clinic, or if meaning gets blurred through interpreting, a full day can go into verification alone. On a tight stay, that day matters.

What to write down

Five items cover most of it.

• Medications you currently take: name, dose, how many times a day, and since when
• Conditions you have been diagnosed with: when, and whether you are still being treated
• Allergies: to medication, anaesthetic, antiseptic, food, anything
• Past surgeries or procedures: the area and roughly when
• Whether you might be pregnant or are breastfeeding

Include blood thinners, hormonal medication, psychiatric medication, and also herbal remedies or supplements that you may not count as medicine. There is no reason to leave anything out, and the judgment about what matters belongs to the medical team.

Give the generic name, not the brand name

This is where things stall most often. The same active ingredient carries entirely different brand names from country to country. Give the name you know from home and there is a real chance the Korean medical team cannot identify the drug at all.

The most reliable fix is a photograph of the box or the package insert, which usually prints the generic name alongside the brand. If the box is gone, a prescription from your home clinic or a pharmacy receipt helps. If all you have left is the tablets, photograph those too. It is still better than nothing.

How far to go with documents

Bring recent test results if you have them. Blood work, imaging, a physician's letter. Two practical points come with that.

First, a Korean institution may not simply accept results issued abroad. Testing methods and reference ranges differ, and some values need to be rechecked after time has passed. So even when you bring documents, you may be tested again after arrival. That does not make the documents useless. They give the medical team the background.

Second is language. A document written only in your own language cannot be read on the spot. An English copy moves things along considerably faster. If that is not possible, translating at least the diagnosis and the drug names into English still helps.

When to send it

At the consultation stage, before you fly. Handing it over on arrival means your schedule waits while it is checked.

When it is shared in advance, the medical team can tell you what additional tests or confirmations they need, and in some cases how you should prepare beforehand. What that preparation looks like differs from person to person, and it is the institution that decides.

What Mediport does

We organise what you send at the consultation stage and pass it to the partner institution, then come back to you with anything the medical team wants clarified. Where language is a barrier, we help communicate the information clearly.

Passing information along is not the same as judging it. What should be done about a medication, and whether a procedure is possible at all, is decided by the medical team who sees you. We do not answer in their place.

Health information is sensitive data. We use it only within the scope of the consultation and do not handle it beyond what you have consented to. Write it in whatever language is comfortable; the organising is ours to do.