My medical review of Dr. Al Laity in London Ontario

[bearmirus 45]

I understand that there are some people feel really uncomfortable around doctors because of their religious, culture beliefs or personal experience so I made some extra detail notes with medical wording so you know what EXACTLY goes on during the xray and physical examination.

Moving on, this is my experience and review of the immigration medical appointment for my IR1 visa with:

Dr. Al Laity

450 Central Ave.

Suite # 202

London, Ontario, Canada

N6B 2E8

TEL: 519-433-4150

FAX: 519-433-4231

As soon I got my appointment letter which was set for March 17th, I went over to http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_1335.html, looked through the website and found the Panel Physician List. I found the closest doctor to me was Dr. Al Laity.

I didn't have my TTY (Telecommunications device for the deaf ) with me to make the call however I found the website for Dr. Al Laity at http://www.paneldoc.com/ and a fax number (whew). I wrote up a letter with my case number and interview date and then I used eFax.com to send the fax.

Within the hour, I got response back from Lisa in typed letter format. She gave me a list of what I needed to bring and ask me to pick a date for the appointment. There were several choices so I went ahead a picked Feb 19th and sent off the fax again with my selection. Again within the hour, but this time it was handwritten reply and wrote that I'm welcome to come in anytime between 9:00am to 11:30am. Plain and simple.

I got everything that was on the list. My passport, two passport photo size ( taken at CAA ), my immunization records, and $225 in cash for the examination (you do have the option to bring $225 in money order and make it out to Dr. Laity.)

On the 19th, I arrived into London, Ontario around 8:30am and found the office (photo shown below). I had to pay $3 dollars to park in the back of the building. I couldn't park on the street since there was mountains of snowbanks along the street. The office is located in an very old building on 2nd floor. You would enter the building through the front door and make a right into the first hallway. You will see a very simple local-owned coffee shop in front of you and the elevator would be on the left hand side. Let me warn you about the elevator.. It took a long..... .time...... to........open........the.....door once it get to the ground floor, felt like a minute has passed by. And it does the same thing........closing.....and.......closing......and the doors finally shut closed. There was a couple of people with me in the elevator and I can tell right away by their body language that they were cursing to gods about the doors under their breath. Sadly for them, I was getting off the 2nd floor while they had to continue up to the third floor (hee hee ). As you would make out of the elevator, you would hang a left and the doctor office would be the first door on your right hand side (photo shown below). I would say that I spent a good 10 minutes to go from my truck to the office.

Now the office itself is rather crude looking but it serve its purpose. The waiting room looks like just a tad bigger than your average family dinner table, two cheap office chairs on the left side and three on the right side. There's a walk-up window but there's a bookcase and small coffee table in front of it so you would have to lean over a bit to speak with Lisa so for the people with handicap, beware! There was nobody in the waiting room when I arrived so I had a prompted service from Lisa.

Lisa was very friendly and accommodating. She asked for all the items that I was asked to bring so I gave her those documents. Then she asked me if I would like to have the medical papers to be mail to me or picked up. Now, I know how *cough* * cough* reliable *hack* *sniff* Canada Post is, I opted to pay more to have it deliver by courier. She said not a problem and handed me a FedEx shipping form on a clipboard to fill out the address of where to send the documents to. It would cost $25 dollars more which I was more than oblige to pay for. I wrote down the FedEx tracking number so I'll know when my documents is on the way. Lisa returned my passport and my interview letter after I filled out the FedEx form. Then she gave me a paper with my passport stapled to it in the upper left hand corner. The paper looks like to be a xray request for London X-Ray Associates. Lisa gave me directions to the xray office which was conveniently located on the first floor in the same building (oy another ride in a very slow elevator).

Heading back out to the entrance where I came inside, just walk to the dead end but don't walk into the secondary hallway. The xray office would on on the left side of the dead end with the name printed on the glass door. Now this waiting room looks 100 times better than Laity's waiting room. There's a walk up area where I met with an rather attractive staff lady, Jennifer. I gave her the xray request form that had my passport on it and she asked for my driver license which I gave her as well ( I was waiting for her to ask me for my email address but nope....dang it.. B) ). She gave my license back and simply told me to take a seat and a nurse will be right with me.

There were couple of people ahead of me but it wasn't long before I was called (I would say around 15 minutes waiting). You would walk in and there would be 4 doors on both side of the hallway that looks like bathroom stalls except no toilet inside. During your duration of your visit, you would have one shall assigned to you to keep your stuff in. I had my backpack, winter jacket with me so I left them in there. I was wearing a t-shirt so I didn't have to take my shirt off but had to remove my neckless and my hearing aid. I waited for a minute or so until another lady (not Jennifer, dang it again ) came to get me. We both walk into the xray room just around the corner from the changing room. I had a xray protection blanket around my waist and the she did a great job gesturing the instructions of what I should do when she tap on my shoulder which was to breath in and hold by breath until I get another tap on the shoulder to breath out. All I had to do was to simply walk up to the xray machine while standing up, grip my hand on a handle on both side. Wait for the shoulder tap, breath in, hold, another shoulder tap, and thats it. Two minutes tops. Done deal and I was talking back to my changing room to gather my things. Once I headed out, I was told to come back in about an hour to pick up the X-rays.

I headed back to Dr. Laity's office and waited for about half an hour. Lisa called me and asked me to leave my stuff in one of the examination room. She took my height and weight and walked back into the examination room (more about this in a bit). I was told to strip down to my birthday suit including the socks, put on this weird looking paper gown which thankfully was big enough to accommodate my size (I'm 6'4", 300lbs). Again, I waited for about 5 minutes before the doctor came in.

Let me tell ya, when I first saw Dr. Laity, my first initial reaction was "Kojak?" The doctor was almost a splitting image of him with the glasses and bald head. Here's a photo of Kojak bellow:

He introduced himself and explained the questions and examination that he would need to exam me for the immigration paperwork. Fortunately for me, he was easy to lip read so I understood all the questions he was asking me.

• Did you ever had depression or mental health issues?
• Did you ever been treated for serious medical issues that I need to be aware of?
• To your best of your knowledge, do you have Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV/AIDS), syphilis, or Tuberculosis (TB)?
• Again to your best of your knowledge, were you ever treated for any sexually transmitted disease (STD)?

There was a couple more questions that I forgotten but they all were standard questions like any other doctors would ask during a normal physical examination.

Once he was happy with my answers, he proceed to take my vital signs - pulse and blood pressure with a old-fashioned sphygmomanometer with his stethoscope. Then he evaluated my neck area by performing palpation on my salivary glands, thyroid gland and cervical nodes. Then he performed a two-spot posterior auscultation with his cold-### stethoscope on my back. He asked me to lay down on my back then he performed superf-palpation and deep-palpation on my abdomen area under the gown. This is just to check for any enlargement of my liver, spleen, kidneys. Then he opened up my gown and took visual examination of my private parts, inner thigh, legs and feet.

He closed up the gown and that was the end of the actual physical examination.

Now I never really had a strong stomach of needles (yeah even a big bear like me feeling weak in the knees about needles) which was happening next. One nice thing about this examination room is that there was an artwork that somebody painted on a white ceiling tile to help distract me. The doctor went ahead and venipuncture on my right anterior forearm with two tubes. It was quick and painless.

And he said "good luck" and left. I went ahead and put my clothes on and took some picture of the examination room including the artwork on the ceiling. When I walked out, Lisa explained to me that it would take two days to do blood testing and couple more days to fill out the paperwork. She will write a note of how I do along with a white envelope which contain the immigration medical form which I'm not allowed to open. She also reminded me about picking up the X-rays. And that was it for Dr. Laity.

As I came back into London X-Ray Associates office, the place was packed with no available seat to sit down. I had to wait in the hallway for twenty minutes to pick up the X-ray. The lady came out and gave me this humongous envelope (13" by 15") with my X-ray film inside and said that everything looks good. And that pretty much sum up of my day in London.

Then a week later, I got my medical stuff and a note stated that everything looks good!

Total time: about 2 1/2 hours

Total Cost: $225 (all cash)

As promised, here are the photos:

Edited March 8, 2008 by bearmirus

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Great review - great photos - although I was looking to see one of the dining room table sized waiting room! Good luck on your journey! (I used to live near London in Chatham -debated between going to London or Windsor for my medical - ended up going to Windsor as I could do the RCMP check at the same time).

[trailmix 77]

Excellent review and funny too!

[Carlawarla 1]

I so enjoy your posts...you have a way with words. Very funny, yet very informative!! Thanks so much for sharing.

[bearmirus 45]

Great review - great photos - although I was looking to see one of the dining room table sized waiting room! Good luck on your journey! (I used to live near London in Chatham -debated between going to London or Windsor for my medical - ended up going to Windsor as I could do the RCMP check at the same time).

I wanted to take a picture of the Dr. Laity's waiting room during my second trip to the office after my xray. But somebody else was sitting in there and I didn't want to become a paparazzi wannabe!

[sandozwalker 0]

My fiance had his medical at Dr. Laity's office as well, but 4 days before yours. We were somewhat annoyed by paying to park as well. We also didn't realize that the payment had to be in cash/money order, so my fiance walked about 5 blocks to find an ATM/ABM machine to get cash (as we didn't want to pay for the parking again).

All in all though we were pleased with the kindness that the office staff provided. Lisa was wonderful, and Steve liked Dr. Laity.

I'm not even sure you could fit a small family dinner table in the waiting room, LOL. It was smaller than most exam room's I've been in.

Thanks for the review-it pretty much mirror's our experience