Medical Examination once again in China - Confucius Institute Scholarship

[Huina]

I have the CIS one semester scholarship for this fall. I'm going to Nanjing Normal University. I'm worried about the exam because while I am extremely healthy physically I have bipolar depression (just cyclic depression really, no mania) that is fully controlled by medication. Is there a way they will find out about my medications by bloodwork? I get routine bloodwork here due to my meds and everything comes back 100% good.

 

I haven't gotten information about my schedule from them, either...

[shuoshuo]

Huina - probably something you shouldn't mention. A friend of mine from latin America told me that they do very thorough blood work in his country so they find out all kinds of things (down to hormones, blood chemicals) so specific mental health issues can be found through the blood work.  But in China, they do very basic blood work and routine, it is thorough enough to detect HIV (they do the different tests), hepatitis, anaemia, etc.

 

If your local doctor will include your history of bipolar depression, you might be better off doing your entire physical examination in China - where as far as I know the doctors do not test for mental illness, nor do they bother themselves going through your history.  But then again they will probably ask you about the medications you are on or I don't know if they will test your blood for this.  I don't know if they will overlook this.

[Huina]

Thank you shuoshuo, I'm nervous. My CI teacher seems to think that there won't be a problem as long as I don't show up crazy as a loon. It's really funny, because I inherited my problem from my chinese side of the family...

[Huina]

One more post, I hope it's not spam. I'm still researching this medical form stuff. I can have it filled out by my GP here and bring all of the paper work with me (including all test results), and it will be valid, right, OR I have the option of taking the test in China. I shouldn't have to take the test twice, right? 

[Matty]

I'm pretty sure you'll have to take the tests in China whether you have taken them overseas or not.

 

If you have taken the tests overseas and [amazingly] they're willing to accept those, you'll probably have to pay for the results to be translated into Chinese anyway.

[shuoshuo]

You won't have to take the tests twice if you have covered all the necessary.  If the school insists on you taking the test a second time (and some schools will do that), it will require you to pay for the medical test fees which is not covered by the scholarship.  You can opt out, and just sort out the residence permit thing yourself.

 

When you are applying for the residence permit, you only need a verification certificate.  So the health bureau that is in charge of verifying your documents will check to see if you've had the necessary tests done.  According to the new laws, they do not care if you test positive for HIV and they are more concerned with tuberculosis, highly contagious diseases and mental illnesses.  However, I've taken the test several times and it's almost as though they only care if you test positive for HIV (the most recent time I've done this, they took a very large blood sample from me and then did 3 different tests for HIV).  They never asked me for my history, never did tests for mental illness (do they just look at you and then guess?).

 

I suggest you do your medical examination at home, and then take the original documents to China.  Ensure that your doctor have written 'normal' for mental illness or anything like that if you do not want to be questioned about your mental health. This is just my advice.

[Petch D]

Do they test for drugs?

[abcdefg]

#27 --

Do they test for drugs?

 

No. At least special tests for drugs of abuse are not listed on the usual lab forms.

[abcdefg]

#21 --

Is there a way they will find out about my medications by bloodwork?

 

Answer -- No. The blood work won't detect tell them what medications you have been prescribed.

[foreigner2u]

Hi!

I know this might be a silly question but I was just wondering if I get a tattoo done right before going to China, is the ink gonna show up in the blood results or not? Would it be a problem?

[abcdefg]

No -- The tattoo ink will not show up in your blood tests.

[Cantabile]

This is something that worries me too. I applied for the CSC and I know they make you take blood tests and stuff when you get to China even if you did them back home. 

 

When I was young I lived in Mexico and my parents decided to get me a  TB vaccine, so now whenever I get tested for TB it comes out as a false-positive so I have to get a chest x-ray. I usually just tell the doctors here about it and they skip me straight to the x-ray lol. I hope they don't immediately kick me out if they test for TB lol.

[abcdefg]

#32 -- They don't do a TB skin test, but a chest X-Ray is routinely required for everyone.

[lixiaha]

Regarding the HIV tests, although China announced that it removed its ban on HIV positive foreigners in 2010, based on discussions with three visa consultancies, China continues to maintain a policy of rejecting long-term visas for all applicants who test HIV positive. This policy has been in force as recently as 2016. If anyone has heard otherwise, it would be interesting to learn more.