“Medical Tourism: The Ethics, Regulation, and Marketing of Health Mobility” a new hardback book costing £85, from major publishers
Routledge, is edited by Professor C. Michael Hall of the Department of Management, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
The author explains, “Medical and health tourism is a significant area of growth in the export of medical, health and tourism services. Although spas and improved wellbeing have long been part of the tourist experience, health tourism now includes travel for medical purposes ranging from cosmetic and dental surgery through to transplants and infertility treatment. Many countries actively promote and compete for the medical tourist, while many developed countries also provide niche private services. However, the field of medical tourism is increasingly being subject to scrutiny and debate, particularly as a result of concerns over regulatory, ethical and wider health issues.”
The publisher adds, ‘Drawing on a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, this book is one of the first to critically address the substantial political, philosophical and ethical issues that arise out of the transnational practices of medical tourism. Through a series of chapters the book engages with key issues such as the role of regulatory and policy structures in influencing medical and health tourism related mobilities. These issues are investigated by considering range of developing and developed countries, medical systems and health economic perspectives .The book adopts a multi-layered perspective to not only investigate the business and marketing practices of medical and health tourism but places these within a broader framework of contemporary globalization, policy and practice. By doing so it opens up debate of the ethical space in which medical and health tourism operates as well as reinforce the wide ranging perspectives that exist on the subject in both the public and academic imagination.”
Contents-
1. Development and implications of medical mobility
2. Quality, safety and risk in medical tourism
3. Economic, social and institutional impediments
4. Medical tourism, xenotourism and client expectations
5. Impacts of health policy on medical tourism in Germany
6. Thermal versus surgical medical tourism in Hungary
7. Health spa tourism in the Czech and Slovak Republic
8. Macao’s cross-border medical tourism
9. Branding medical and health tourism in Germany
10. Korean health tourist behaviour
11. Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and India
12. The promotion of Malaysia as a destination
13. The future
Another book in preparation is “Patients with passports-medical tourism, law and ethics” by Glenn Cohen. Oxford University Press will publish it.
Glenn Cohen explains, “This book will be the first comprehensive analysis of the legal and ethical issues raised with multiple varieties of medical tourism—for services that are legal in the home and destination country (e.g. hip replacements, cardiac bypass), for services that are illegal in the home country but legal in the destination country (e.g. abortion, assisted suicide, reproductive technologies, stem cell treatments), and for services that are illegal in both places (e.g, organ sale).”
Cohen is seeking the assistance of student research partners who will be responsible for page proofing, gathering materials, and managing media contacts. They will learn about bioethics and the globalization of health care.
