Women’s Health in Japan: Finding the Right Doctor

Looking for a doctor you can trust and you can clearly communicate with is challenging, especially if you’re living in Japan.

The first time I went to see a doctor in Japan I was living alone in the countryside, it was in the middle of the night, and my Japanese level was pretty bad. I did get cured, but that moment was quite stressful and shocking. 

Because of that, I try my best to be healthy, so I don’t have to go through that ordeal again, but when I moved to the Kanto area, the inevitable happened, I needed to go to the hospital.

Finding Help

I got sick and I needed to seek the help of a gynecologist and urologist. I had no friends nor family in my new home city, so I was on my own. Thankfully, I had Google-san to assist me to find a reliable doctor that I could easily communicate with.

Here are the list of the websites that helped me with my research:

1. The Expats Guide to Japan

This website has tons of articles about aiding expats how to make their lives easier in Japan.

In addition, it also has a list of hospitals/clinics around the Kanto area, which also includes information regarding the services being offered, if they accept NHI, or if an English-speaking doctor/staff is available, etc.

Website: https://expatsguide.jp/

2.Google Search

Seriously, this search engine is helpful and convenient to use. Not only will it give you lists of hospitals, but also some reviews. This feature has really helped me find trustworthy doctors around my area here in Japan.

Thank you DOC!

Here are some of the hospital and clinics I’ve been to that helped me out ( Tokyo Area Only):

1. St. Luke Hospital (Chuo)

This hospital has very good service. They have staff that can speak, English, Chinese, and other languages, so I didn’t have difficulty making an appointment over the phone. Moreover, the facilities are really high class and the urologist I talked to spoke really good English.

NOTE: It’s advisable to reserve an appointment with St. Luke Hospital and to have a RECOMMENDATION LETTER from a clinic or a different hospital before going there.

I’ve experienced being rejected by a big hospital (somewhere in Shinjuku) despite being in pain and making an appointment, because I don’t have a recommendation letter (but I was told over the phone I can still go to without it). The doctor refused to see me even though my information was already entered in their system and took a copy of my credit card.

So, when I went to St. Lukes, I made sure I have that piece of paper, just to avoid that ever happening again.

Website: http://hospital.luke.ac.jp/eng/index.html

2. Numata Medical Clinic (Kichioji)

This small family clinic has one of the best doctors I’ve met in Japan. Dr. Masayuki Numata was very approachable and has really great English speaking skills (he lived in Canada before). He was very attentive to what I said to him and asked me a lot of questions and gave me useful advice. It was my first time experiencing such an attentive doctor.

However, since the clinic is quite small, the testing that can be done here is limited, but the doctor does try his best to help his patients out. 

Currently, it has a perfect review in Google.

Website: https://www.numatamedical.com/

3. K Ladies Clinic (Shinjuku)

This clinic offers various health services for women like morning after pills, contraception, birth control, pap smear, STI, UTI, etc.

I had a pleasant experience going here. The form I filled out was in English and the staff spoke English. I never got tested or did any treatment. I just had a consultation and the recommendation letter that I used for St. Luke, hence I can’t really review how good their overall performance is. 

I’ve seen that K Ladies Clinic have few bad reviews on Google though. So, I suggest before going there to read the reviews to help you make a decision.

Website: https://www.klcs.jp/en/

4. Kameda Medical Clinic (Chuo)

The facilities in this clinic looked really high class. However, not all the staff could speak English and the form I filled out was in Japanese, so I needed to use Google Translate to help me decipher the kanji.

But, Kameda Clinic did assign a person that could speak English to help me out (she arrived after I finished filling out my form). The gynecologist I talked to also spoke English, but not very fluently.

It was just a bit pricey and they made me go back to get my tests, which I could actually just get within a day in other hospitals/ clinics. 

Website: http://www.kameda-kyobashi.com/en/

I hope this list could help you out to find a doctor that could help you with your ‘girl problems.’ How about you? Do you have any bad or success stories about doctors/hospitals here in Japan? Comment down below!