Stephen: Hello everyone. Now I’m going to talk with Jim from USA about the hernia, hernia surgery and some other things. Now Jim, can you introduce yourself to the people?
 
Jim: Yeah well my name is Jim and I’m from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
 
Stephen: Now you can talk about your hernia from the beginning and up until now.
 
Jim: When I sustained my hernia several months ago, I thought it would be just a very simple matter of getting it repaired. But I didn’t find it out to be the case. You have to really do your homework, and more look into it, do more research. I did. I found that it’s a fairly complex matter because there’re so many different procedures out there and proponents of those various procedures, surgeries, I should say, and it’s just very complex and so you have to, I guess, what I’m trying to say is you really have to do your research because you have to find the right doctor with the right hernia repair procedure, with the right technique because you have to take care of your body.
If you don’t take care of your body, where you’re going to live, your health is probably the most valuable thing that you possess. So you can’t really take that for granted, you have to really do your due diligence. And in the process of doing that, in the process of doing a lot of research, I came across Dr. Kang. He does non-mesh open or tissue hernia repair which is not very common in the United States. There’re a few handful people that still do that in United States.
But the most part that’s been phased out in favor of mesh, and there’s a lot of problems associated with mesh. So I decided early on that I wasn’t going to have mesh implanted in me because a lot of times human body rejects mesh because it is a foreign matter. So of course I’m sure, people, I heard about, all the lawsuits concerning mesh whatever. That is the conclusion that I came to, that I was going to have open non-mesh hernia repair. And I decided to have Dr. Kang do it because he is very experienced. He has a vast experience with it and he’s done it over 10,000 procedures. And, like I said, there’re a lot of doctors, not a lot just a handful doctors in the United States that do open tissue repairs. But because it’s been phased out in favor of mesh, so there’s just a few left.
But it seems to me that their repair procedures is more invasive a lot, more invasive than Dr. Kang’s procedure. And of course his procedure just involves say like one and a half incision whereas in the other case. There in the case of these other doctors, it’s usually 3 or 4 inches or whatever. And of course the size of incision equates with tissue damage and whatnot nerve damage, vascular damage.
 
So I mean that’s something to take into consideration. I just cannot wrap my brain around the fact that in a lot of instances with these various hernia repairs causing more damage than exist in first place. And I just I don’t understand that line of thinking. So I guess some kind of rambling on here, but anyhow Dr. Kang is, like I said, he’s vastly experienced with his procedure and probably more so than just about anyone else. He probably does maybe 6, 8, 10 hernia repairs a day and he’s been doing that for years.
 
But what’s more important than that is he’s very innovative. He’s always striving for perfection and he’s always trying to improve his procedure. And so he has innovated a new procedure which hasn’t really happened anywhere else throughout the world to my knowledge. He’s innovated a new procedure which I feel probably superior procedure because it’s far less invasive and he has less than a half percent recurrence rate with it. So I would say that it is a superior procedure. And that’s why I’ve traveled all the way to South Korea to get it done because you’ve got to take care of yourself. I got to take of health.
 
Stephen: But your family or your friend didn’t like you just fly a long flight from USA here. And how you overcome that?
 
Jim: Yeah I did get meet with some resistance which is understandable because people think that you’ve lost your mind. When you live in the United States and you’re travelling to a foreign country to get relatively common procedure performed, medical procedure performed, they probably think that you got a few screws loose or whatever.
 
But the fact, the matter is, like I said, you really have to take care of your health, I mean that’s your first priority, that’s most of the possession that you have or whatever. And people travel overseas all the time for vacation. So why wouldn’t you travel overseas to get a surgical procedure done if that’s the best place to have it done? And this is, I feel like, Gipum hospital which is Dr. Kang’s hospital is the best place to have it done, so I traveled all the way to South Korea. It’s quite an adventure, it’s quite a long trip, but it was worth it.
 
Stephen: You are a really brave man and nice. Actually you had made a right decision and wonderful decision that’s what I think really. And next question is that you can talk about the surgery experience here and on the recovery at your hotel room and up until now. You can, a little more, specify about that.
 
Jim: Yeah well I’d like to say first, one thing I want to mention is there are certainly some good doctors in United States. I really feel that there are some good doctors, very possibly, some good hernia repair doctors or whatever. I’m not trying to throw them all under the bus but you have to find the doctor that really is best for your particular case.
 
 And if you, I’m not an advocate of mesh at all, I personally would avoid mesh, but of course that’s what’s promoted primarily in the United States. So I mean I’m not a doctor but I just feel like there’s a lot of problems associated with that and so I’m not going to subject myself to that.
 
But I suppose some good doctors that do open repairs, but here again I’m repeating myself, I just feel like in my case I think that their repairs were a little too invasive for me. And whereas Dr. Kang’s repair which was a lot less invasive and I think that it’s very... I had it done a week ago, (or) five days ago and I think it’s been a very successful, making very good progress. And as far as the procedure is concerned that the hospital here everything went well, I mean it’s very streamlined process. I didn’t experience that in the United States.
 
Nothing seems to be streamlined there. You make an appointment get this done. And you wait several weeks or a month. And you make another appointment to get that done and you wait several weeks or a month or whatever. And they don’t do you right, so you get a reschedule... It’s just for me it was a nightmare.
 
So I’m just being honest, that’s the way it was whatever. I’m sure it doesn’t work that way for everyone, but here it’s a very streamlined process and everything was done in a day basically. I come to the hospital and they do the sonograph and they do an accurate and reliable sonograph. That’s whole part of the whole process because they want to find out exactly what type of hernia you have, and the location of the hernia. And so they make good use of that technology so that Dr. Kang knows where to make the incision and that sort of thing. And then after the surgery was done, they put me under local anesthesia. I didn’t feel any pain during the surgery whatsoever. And they took me to the hospital room. You spend the day or night in the hospital room. And the accommodations are nice and everything and the nurses are attentive. And so it went really well as far as I’m sure then you go back to your hotel room.
 
I suppose not every case is the same but I went back to my hotel room after spending the night in the hospital. And so it was a very smooth streamlined process. I’m happy with healthy as well.
 
Stephen: Okay very good. Well you can talk about some tips for the hernia patients in the world. If you want to say anything?
 
Jim: Some tips? The biggest advice where I would give to the hernia patients in the world is “Do your homework,” “Do your due diligence,” and make sure because you don’t want to just go to the first, you don’t want to have the first doctor that you see do your hernia repair. Maybe ultimately that might be your decision but you want to see a few doctors and you want to do a lot of research on the internet. And you want to learn about hernia repair because you can’t none ring the bell. You got to get it right at the first time. And so there’s really no going back, you got to get it right first time because the second time around it becomes more complex.
And I certainly didn’t want to get on the hernia repair gravy train. I mean I didn’t want to have my hernia repair and have it repaired again or have mesh implants, have it removed. And so I certainly wanted to avoid that as far as I’m concerned it’s a one-shot deal. I feel like that was accomplished here and I promise you.
 
Stephen: Okay actually you come across Dr. Kang on the hernia forum the named ‘Hernia Talk’, right? You exchange some writings on and off and come and go like that.
 
Jim: Yeah we communicated a lot on Hernia Talk and there’s a lot of good information on there. And he was very generous with his information and his knowledge on Hernia Talk. And he answered my questions and the answers, questions that people posed to him. And I just felt like the answer is basically all the answers, well not all the answers, but I mean he’s a very, how intelligent he is, probably genius whoever. He is a very intelligent man.
So he has most of the answers but he’s also a humble man. So he’ll, if he doesn’t know something, he will admit that he doesn’t know it. And I was very persuaded by his arguments on Hernia Talk and he presented his case well for his particular procedure, in his particular surgery.
 
Stephen: (Because it’s related) Some American patients don’t want to come here for political instability. Do you know what I mean? So they think “if I go there, to a dangerous place here,” and but I don’t think so.
 
Jim: No, I don’t think so. I think President Trump with the help of South Korea and some other nations, I think he has that all under control. And I think that again, like I was saying that Kim Jeong-eun wasn’t really… I mean he made his tricks whatever but I basically I think he was just using that as leverage to get what he wanted and what he wanted some extent and serve everyone’s interest. Not just his but every countries.
 
Stephen: Okay thank you for your political comment either. Okay. Now probably it’s good enough right? Maybe we can say that goodbye to the people. Okay bye.