Monday, September 30, 2013

Medical Screening

     Part of the process to be allowed to move overseas is an medical overseas suitability screening. Depending upon whether your the sailor or the spouse the accumulated time for your process can differ drastically. Either way be as proactive as you can before you get hard orders and as soon as you get those orders act quick!
     The actual screening you can't do until you have hard orders but you can get some things done before. For one locate your complete, up to date immunization record. Anything you're missing see if you can convince your primary care doctor to do them ahead of time to save you work down the road. I was able to get my tDAP done early but they had me wait on my PPD test due to a national shortage.  Also make sure if there's any medical appointments you are due for get them done! This includes dental, gyno, etc. There's actually a specific form that must be filled out by a dentist that says you're good to go.
     Once those orders come in your sailor jsut has to go to the ship. They literally do all of their screening, paperwork and filling. Needless to say Danny was done in a day. Mine however took a bit longer. You do NOT need physical hard copies of your records if they were completed at a navy medical location because they are in the computer records system, however any outside records or immunization charts bring the hard copy. Before you even get your screening you have a pre-screening where they look to make sure you're paperwork is in check and set you up with an appointment. Make sure you have your official orders with you otherwise they won't do anything. When they looked at my things they noticed my immunization records had not been updated in a while and I also needed the PPD test. So that very day they did the PPD test and my blood was drawn to find out exactly what I had immunity to. Since this began the process I was able to set up my appointment. Make sure to know your timeline. Most people get 30 days to work with on their ship; we got 15. Even though they may assure you, know you're timeline because they won't be anywhere in sight if weeks down the road they were wrong and it's somehow negatively effecting you then.  For the PPD test the only way to really get it is if you're required. After the initial injection you come back in 48-72 hours to check the results, at which time I found my blood draw results. I had zero immunities! So basically I got 3 more shots that day, in a month I will get 2 more and my last one will be while we are in Japan.  People can actually loose their immunities, ( I never knew) which I had. However I must say, had I just had up to date records from the pediatrics of Lima, I wouldn't be getting poked so much.
     For the actual screening arrive early, sign in, have all your paperwork ready to go and wait. The doctor will literally look over everything you have, your electronic file and ask a few questions. The screening itself is maybe 20 minutes. Once they sign off the main medical desk copies everything for their records. All the signed paperwork gets taken into the ship so they can verify and file away that information. If they want to keep any documents ask to have copies made. All of this is for our approval of entrance.
     Next we are on our way to sorting out flights, HHG and lodging. Dogs are basically done just need to send some minor paperwork. There's a lot to do in all of this but it can very easily be segmented down into manageable portion sizes. The thing that irritates me the most it waiting on others across the world to move in a quicker manner when I'm waiting to move to the next step upon their response. Luckily I'm a  very squeaky wheel.

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