Medical appointment in Lisbon

[mcleonardo 1]

Hi Vj Members,

So yesterday I went to my medical appointment in Lisbon; And decided to write something for those who will have to go through the same process, I was curious before the appointment, but in the Portuguese forum I did not find anything for this phase of the process. I would also like to thank everyone that has shared their first hand experience and precious knowledge on the Visa Journey website.

Well, I will have my interview next month at the USA Embassy in Paris (unfortunatly the US Embassy in Lisbon, no longer deals with this process) . When I received my interview letter, I went ahead and scheduled my medical appointment as fast as I could. I was able to schedule it for the forthcoming week.

In Portugal, the only doctors the can sign off on the medical exams, are located at the capital city Lisbon. For me this implied taking a day off and a travel time of 6 hours by train.

I arrived at the clinic on time: first filled a small form, and moments later one of the doctors assistants took me for a blood test; I’m a little scared of needles, but it was a quick and painless process. Shortly after, another assistant took me for a vision test. The third part, was an examination performed by the doctor. She was very nice, we began by talking about my vaccination history; (by the way, they require us to take 4 photos, vaccination record, passport, glasses or contact lenses in case you use them). They do not require all the vaccines to be up to date on the date of the medical appointment, but they do require proof that they have been taken later on. An email with proof that the vaccine have been administered by a health professional (Doctor/Nurse) will be enough. In our case, there are three mandatory vaccines – Varicella, Tetanus and VASPR. If you need to take the Varicella vaccine, you will have to buy it at a pharmacy, as I did, there are two options, one for 41 euros and a more expensive one for 88 Euros. Although she was nice, she did ask a bunch of questions - do you currently smoke or have you ever smoked cigarets? Do you drink alcohol, take drugs or even if you ever had thoughts of hurting or killing yourself!?. These are only a few of the questions, there were much more. She then asked me to take my clothes off, then did a full body visual inspection, measured my height and weight. Oh and they you will ask the address that you intend to live in the USA. The entire process took about 20 minutes. The last part was an x-ray exam, that is done in another building just across the street. I ended up spending a total of 155 Euros.

The clinic will sent by mail the results to the address you provide in Portugal, the sealed envelope will have to be taken for your interview in Paris. When entering the USA, the X-Ray and all the other exam results will have to go with you, because, as the doctor shared with me, they ask for them. Sorry for some grammatical mistakes. I hope this story will be helpful for someone.

Good luck to all.

[promenad 9]

Hi

My experience was pretty similar to yours. The only thing i want to complet is that in case you had varicella you can do an extra test in order to show that you have the antibody for it. The clinic charged me an extra 38 euros for that. My process was much longer than yours. I arrived a little before 9 am and only went to do the x-ray after noon!!!!

I choose to pick up the results and they were available on friday (my exame was on monday)

good luck for everybody (and for me too cause my interview is next week!)

[NikLR 13,232]

~~moved to Europe regional forum as topic is a country specific review and not specifically asking questions about the IR1 process from IR1 process and procedures ~~

[Al422 221]

On a K-1 you can wait for the US for your vaccines, but that is usually not a good economic choice because US doctors charge a lot more for them. Get them done before you leave.

With CR-1 they must be done before you leave.

They ask a lot of questions because they have to. Just answer them one at a time, do what the doctor tells you to do , and you usually pass the exam easily.

Glad yours went well for you.

[DianaSa 0]

Hi.

Thanks for sharing.

Can you please tell me which doctors do medical in Lisbon?

thanks

[SparklePony 238]

Just in case someone searches for this information, medicals for US visas are done at CMIL - Clinica Medica Internacional de Lisboa. There's also one doctor who does them in the Azores.

I ended up having to re-do my medical (long story) and it was a breeze each time, everyone is very nice. A tip regarding Varicella: if you had chicken pox as a child, you should go to your local health center BEFORE the medical and ask your family doctor for the papers to get a blood test to confirm immunity. You can then take those test results to your medical at CMIL and show them to prove you don't need the Varicella vaccine. It's much cheaper than doing it at CMIL. If you have children younger than 15 they can also test for immunity to Varicella through blood test, if they've had it. If they've had the vaccine, then show the record of that. The x-ray however they cannot do, and must do a skin test to show they're TB-free. Be aware that the BCG vaccine can cause false-positive skin tests.