Medical tourism - International Conference, Call For Paper ...

1.0 Introduction
Medical tourism refers to the many patients that are currently traveling overseas for immediate and
affordable treatment. Caballero-Danell and Mugomba (2007) defines medical tourism as the pursuit of
medical care abroad and simultaneously engage in more conventional forms of tourism.
According to Daub’s study (as cited in Newman, 2006), medical tourism is the attempt by many
Americans to save money by traveling to other countries for their medical needs. This focuses on the
Americans while others define differently.
Keckly and Underwood (2008)
noted that medical tourism is the process of “leaving home” for
treatments and care abroad or elsewhere domestically. It is an emerging phenomenon in the health care
industry.
In addition, according to Horowitz and Rosensweig (2007), “medical tourists” seek modern health care
at affordable prices in countries at variable levels of development. Medical tourism is different from
the traditional form of international medical care where patients typically journey from less developed
nations to major medical centers in highly developed countries for advanced medical treatment. This
means even patients from a highly developed country such as The United States can go to those
developing countries such as Malaysia and its neighbours for medical treatment.
In short, medical tourism is the attempt by patients to seek for a qualified and high quality medical
health care at foreign countries at an affordable price or cheaper price. It does not limit to traveling to
modern countries to seek for better service but most important is the affordable price with the same
quality of service. This combination of surgery and tourism is a relatively new type of nonexclusive
niche tourism that promises to have significant growth over the next few years.
Connell (2005) found as health care costs have increased tremendously, patients in the developed world
are looking overseas for medical treatment. Patients in developed countries always suffer from long
waiting time. They have to take turns to wait for the medical treatment. Thus, consumers commit to
travel overseas for their medical treatment. Often, consumer will also take the opportunity to be a
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