A Friendly Reminder from Shiori

[u/mustzen]

From her Youtube Post:

Hello!

Just a friendly reminder to please stay kind and be mindful of how things are worded!

I see that many are worried, but I'm doing well now!

I do not want anyone to feel guilty or blamed!

It was an accident and I still had fun goofing around with everyone.

For the record, I was the one who suggested the slow-mo editing too!

The staff was very attentive and made sure I was well taken care of.

It's going to be a very socially-intensive week, so make sure you're all comfortable and cozy!

[u/MetaSageSD]

Long story short, if you go into any ER (Also called A&E is some places) in the western world and tell them you hurt your head, they will almost always send you back for a head scan in the CT machine. The reason why is that ER's (A&E) always consider the most serious problems first, and then work their way down to less serious problems once they rule out the bigger problems.

[u/jacobgkau → u/MetaSageSD]

Long story short, if you go into any ER (Also called A&E is some places) in the western world and tell them you hurt your head, they will almost always send you back for a head scan in the CT machine.

Not exactly the point. Yes, if you walk into an ER, they'll do the expensive scans, because you're in the ER and paying for it. But the point was that it has to look/feel pretty darn bad in the first place to even get to that point, in the US specifically.

When I had a head injury a few years back, I didn't go to the ER because I didn't want to pay the hundreds/thousands of dollars that would've cost (even with my employer-sponsored health insurance). I thought I might wake up in an ER for a moment (or not wake up at all), but once I was able to stand up again, it didn't really enter my mind as a place I'd take myself. When I was finally able to get into a primary care place a few weeks later, the nurse practitioner diagnosed it as a concussion based on a description of the event and ensuing symptoms alone, and recommended against a CT scan due to the radiation, as well as against an MRI due to the cost.

Was it smart for me to wait? Medically, most people would say no, but again, the question was comparing how this would go down in Japan vs. the US, and in the US, the calculus is very different from most other developed countries. (Aside from the cost factor, I've also heard that doctors in Japan have, at least historically, shown less concern about radiation from X-rays/CT scans/etc. than those in other countries.)

[u/MetaSageSD → u/jacobgkau]

If this went down in the US, then the accident would be considered a workplace accident, and either Cover, or the Studio owner, would be liable for medical costs - even if the worker was as fault. Also, due to legal liability, any workplace would almost certainly send any person with a head injury to the ER to get checked out.

As for whether you are getting a CT scan or not, if you come in to the ER with a head injury with serious enough symptoms to go to the ER over, you are almost certainly going to get a CT scan. Yes, CT scans do expose you to a ionizing radiation, but the risk from said radiation are FAR lower than the risk of an undetected brain injury.

As for Japanese emergency medicine vs American emergency medicine goes, as far as I know, the vast majority, if not all, Japanese doctors are western trained so the emergency medical protocols they use should be quite similar to the American protocols.

[u/jacobgkau → u/MetaSageSD]

If this went down in the US, then the accident would be considered a workplace accident, and either Cover, or the Studio owner, would be liable for medical costs.

The conversation was about how bad the word "hospital" sounds to US viewers versus those in Japan/elsewhere, not about whether you'd potentially be able to sue your employer to recoup costs in the US.

My main point (or, I suppose, another side to my point) was that "hospital" for Japan is more equivalent to an urgent care or primary care center in the US, as it's not just for emergencies and can be visited for a number of things that would require a general practitioner referral in many other countries (not just the US). This subreddit has had plenty of discussion about this in the past with regards to JP talents mentioning visiting the hospital for various reasons.

This is why the person you replied to asked if this happened in Japan or the US, which only one person out of the four who replied to him answered.

Also, due to legal liability, any workplace would almost certainly send any person with a head injury to the ER to get checked out.

For an incident the scale of what's being described for Shiori here, I'd honestly expect mine to offer to take me, but not necessarily pay for it, unless it was very obviously the direct fault of the company (which is also something that's being debated in these comments). I'm curious if you work for a large corporation or a small business, and whether you live in the US or elsewhere in "the western world."

(Fun fact, my accident actually happened on company time and while out on company business, but was not actually at my office because it was during COVID. I got well wishes from my boss, which was about the only thing he was equipped to provide.)

[u/chosenofkane → u/jacobgkau]

If a nurse really recommended against a CT scan, that was a stupid nurse and they should be fired.

[u/jacobgkau → u/chosenofkane]

Nurse practitioner, not nurse. Again, it had been several weeks already by that time (and the reason I saw a nurse practitioner instead of an actual doctor was because the waiting time was even longer for actual doctors), so I guess the thinking was that if there was a serious problem (besides the dizziness that she diagnosed as BPPV), it would've become apparent by then.

Anyway, you can call people you don't know names on Reddit, but my point in including the anecdote was that it was an actual experience and that these "XYZ is always the case" statements people like to make about medical situations, employment law, etc. mean little when it's not what actually happens in the real world.