Travel abroad for healthcare has increased rapidly; interventions include organ transplant; cardiac surgery; reproductive care; and joint, cosmetic, and dental procedures. Individuals who receive medical care abroad are a vulnerable, sentinel population, who sample the local environment and can carry home unusual and resistant infections, documented in many reports. Medical tourists are at risk...

BACKGROUND Clinical and research electives abroad offer medical students many unique experiences. However, participating in an unfamiliar health-care setting combined with limited medical experience may place students at risk of illness. To improve pre-and post-travel care, we assessed the health risks and the quality and comprehensiveness of pre-and post-travel care in a cohort of Dutch medica...

Introduction: Travel health centers offer very important health services for individuals traveling abroad. Little is known about the health status and knowledge of travel health, travel-related diseases, and vaccinations of individuals who travel abroad and visit travel health centers. This research studied travelers who visited a travel health center in order to evaluate their...

BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket expenses, medical and non-medical, have an impoverishing effect on the family. OBJECTIVE Determine non-medical out-of-pocket expenses incurred during out-patient attendance for primary care services. METHODS A descriptive survey was undertaken at a rural medical college using interviewer-administered questionnaire to parents of children <6 years over a period of 6 w...

BACKGROUND Medical tourism companies play an important role in promoting transnational medical travel for elective, out-of-pocket medical procedures. Though researchers are paying increasing attention to the global phenomenon of medical tourism, to date websites of medical tourism companies have received limited scrutiny. This article analyzes websites of Canadian medical tourism companies that...

International travel has become increasingly common and accessible, hence, about two billion passengers undertake international and domestic air travel each year. Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a serious public health disorder which may occur following prolonged travel, especially after air travel. A direct relation between VTE development and prolonged travels has been documented, while some ...

The series of student elective articles that featured in the BMJ a few months ago prompted a review of electives within Dundee Medical School: the following figures, observations, and reflections may be of interest. International opportunities All medical schools in Britain provide for elective periods in their undergraduate curricula. Information gathered in 1974 showed that of the total numbe...

BACKGROUND Medical tourism is the practice of traveling across international boundaries in order to access medical care. Residents of low-to-middle income countries with strained or inadequate health systems have long traveled to other countries in order to access procedures not available in their home countries and to take advantage of higher quality care elsewhere. In Mongolia, for example, r...

BACKGROUND Various sociodemographic factors can affect the quality of life of medical students and interfere in their ability to study. A deeper understanding of these factors may facilitate improvements in learning and retention of medical students. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study of 405 medical students, representing 65.3% of the total student body (years 1-6), at a private med...

The practice of medical tourism depends on successfully informing potential patients about procedure options, treatment facilities, tourism opportunities, travel arrangements, and destination countries. The promotion of medical tourism includes a wide range of marketing materials such as flyers, booklets, and websites. Yet, there is a paucity of knowledge about the dissemination, content, and r...