Instructions for an Appointment

You are invited to make the appointment from our website, www.doctorun.com (Appointment Manager), as follows. If you are not alone, make an appointment for each of you, one by one; first start with making appointments for the children ages from 2 to 15. Applicants from 2nd birthday until reach 15th birthday need to make an appointment with us at least 4 working days prior to their interview date in the embassy. As the TST test reading is 72 hours later (3 days), do not prefer a Thursday for the children as we are closed on Sunday. Do not let your child to have a live vaccine shot in 4 weeks time before coming here.

Steps for making an appointment.

1. Click the Appointment -> Appointment Manager on the left side of our web page.
2. Read the text and Click to the "Go to step 1..." sentence at the bottom,
3. Enter your details (Exactly the same as it is written on your passport),
4. Select the appointment date you wish and click to the appointment box (the system will not allow you to choose a medical appointment date which does not let an enough time interval in between the medical and interview appointments, calculating it on behalf of you to get your medical report safely, in time),
5. Check the information you have entered and the appointment date/time.
6. Finish,

The appointments you see in the web page are scheduled in every 5 minutes. Don’t be surprised, this does not mean that your medical screening ends in 5 minutes, it is more complex than to be completed within 5 minutes. This appointment you choose is only for making you enter to the formal medical testing process. We classify the applicants when they are here in time and tell the individual where to begin from to the process in a designed Medical Examination flow chart. The process will begin with our secretarial guidance among one of the 4 necessary parts of the process which are Medical Examination and Vaccination, Chest X-ray (CXR), Blood Test, TST (Tuberculosis Skin Test for age between 2 to 15 years) and a random drug test. We will select the part you will start from in our system when you are here. So please try to be in time in order not to effect those appointments coming after you. Some instructions are designed to detect communicable diseases among applicants and to reduce the risk of spread of them among the U.S. population after immigration. We started to apply the new instructions in February 2008.

“Women who are pregnant are required to have a Chest X-Ray to immigrate. Pregnant women will need to provide consent for the CX-Ray. Pregnant women receiving chest radiographs will be provided abdominal and pelvic protection with double layer, wrap-around lead shields”. So please be aware that if you do prefer not to have a Chest X-Ray your medical report will not be completed till the end of your pregnancy, when you have the Chest X-Ray result.

For most of the cases 15 or older than 15 years, 2 working days period is enough for the medical, which means that if you book your appointment before 12:00 am we "may" give the result to you in 2 working days time (for the adults). Try to put 2 "working days" in between your medical appointment and your interview date in the embassy in order to be in safe side. Please consider the days which we do not work and make your appointment accordingly. We do not work on Sunday in Turkey as it is official weekend holiday; and we may not be available in some of the National & Religious Holidays. Please look at a local calendar before you start (http://turkey.usembassy.gov/holidays.html ).

Wait for our confirmation e-mail which should be sent to you at the end of 4 working days after applying to the appointment manager in our web page. If you do not receive an e-mail 4 working days later, send us a reminding e-mail.

The new Tuberculosis Technical Instructions will apply to all applicants screened in Turkey, regardless of country of origin. Applicants 2-15 years of age (from 2nd birthday until reach 15th birthday) need to make an appointment with us at least 4 working days prior to their interview date in the embassy due to those new instructions. We need 72 hours in order only to read their TB Skin test. If the applicant is found to be normal at the end of the procedure the medical report will be given at the end of 4 th day. But if there seems to be a need for the additional tests this duration may considerably be longer due to the technical instructions (The TST result is ready 72 hours later. If the TST is ≥5 mm, a CXR (anteroposterior or posteroanterior view and a lateral view for applicants <10 years of age; posteroanterior view for applicants ≥10 years of age) should be performed.

Both for the adult and the TST positive child, if the CXR findings are suggestive of tuberculosis and/or has signs and symptoms of Tuberculosis, the applicant should provide three sputum specimens to undergo microscopy for AFB, as well as culture for mycobacteria and confirmation of the Mycobacterium species, at least to the M. tuberculosis complex level which may result an additional 8 weeks.

We strongly recommend the applicants to make their own appointments from our website in case not to have a spelling mistake, or not having wrong information due to the language problems. If necessary ask one of your family member to help you for using the medical appointment system. We prepare your documents in advance, before you come here.

When you are here, some delays in the procedure may occur either because of your test results or because of the other patients. There may also be patients other than the visa applicants seeking for urgent medical care in the same day. Be aware that health related appointments may shift in the last minute due to relative importance of the cases unlike the other professional appointments.

Our medical practice is located on the same street with the American Embassy (Ataturk Bulvari), across the street, 500 meters away from it. The blood tests and Chest Xray must be done in the indicated medical laboratory (Duzen laboratory) which is written on your papers and this medical laboratory is sharing the same building with our medical practice.

The blood tests from other laboratories or countries can not be accepted as they are not considered as official. We can not use the Tuberculosis Skin Test results from other medical centers.

We do not necessarily accept all kinds of vaccination records especially if we feel any abnormality (like suspicious handwriting, without original documents) in your records or if it is not translated in to English. If you do not have a vaccination card it is not a problem, we have all kinds of the vaccines in our medical center and we are able to apply them in our office if necessary, during the physical examination. Please consider that vaccination in this designed procedure is not exactly the same with the immunization practice being applied in any country (also not exactly the same as the practice in USA), due to the need for fullfilling the requirements in the technical instructions for "IMMIGRATION", prior to having the rights to live in USA. This is considered as an "OPPORTUNITY" which should not be missed in PREVENTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES by immunization against diseases of public health importance in USA.

When you arrive in our office, we will prepare your documents and take you either to the doctor’s examination room which is in 1st floor or to the 3rd floor (Duzen laboratory) to give the blood sample and to take the chest x-ray (we will decide it according to our workload). The laboratory will bring the results to us, so you do not need to collect them. If you start from the laboratory part, after completing this part of the whole process, we will tell you to go to your hotel and rest till the date and time which our secretary reschedules another appointment to you and we will wait for you to come to our office again at the date and time which she lets you know just after the test procedure. So when you are back in our office, the doctors will make your physical examination and they will fill your reports (depending on your medical history, physical and x-ray and lab results). The doctors can speak in Persian enough for the medical examination, so there is no need for a translator in the room. If you do not have any abnormality which should be explained by additional tests and consultations we will finalize your procedure and give you the original medical report in a closed and sealed envelope. Take the sealed envelope to the embassy without opening the envelope (you do not need to take the x-ray itself to the embassy but please take the original chest X-Ray to the USA).

If you still need any other information like the fees and etc; please go to our web page (www.doctorun.com), or you may go to the American Embassy's web page (http://turkey.usembassy.gov/medical_requirements.html).