American Surgeon’s view on Medical Tourism

July 22, 2009 by peter  
Filed under Industry, News

doctorpatient

Hello There!

American specialists have been threatened by the growing number of patients who travel abroad for private but cheaper medical treatment. It is estimated that around 500,000 Americans travel abroad each year for healthcare and medical procedure and it’s been dramatically getting higher and higher each year.

With the global recession which has hit the United States, really big time, it’s not such a shocker to know that people seeking for health care would resort to outsourcing medical care in cheaper countries.  This has been one of the the most practical things to do during these hard times.

As doctors abroad are grinning for the good luck medical tourism has brought them, western especially the American specialists are scared for the growing scarcity of patients. Medical Tourism has become one competition where the American doctors are losing.

This has led the American College of Surgeons to give out public statements on medical and surgical tourism, where they have laid out all the disadvantages of medical tourism. They have also made public comments  to those medical tourists who have come back home from a procedure abroad.

In relation to this, on Dr Rich’s blog post, he stated a funny interpretation about  how he understood the enlisted advice by the American College of Surgeons. He said, “Indeed, the potential difficulty in suing foreign doctors appears to be the chief differentiator and primary argument in favor of good-old-American-surgery. The surgeons, in essence, are saying, ‘Let us do your surgery, because we’re easier to sue if we mess up.’ ”

In my opinion, American Surgeons are scaring the medical tourists of medical malpractice performed by doctors abroad when actually that’s beyond the point. After all, it’s just a matter of calculating the best option possible after making a decision  from the top  medical tourism considerations.

Until Next Time!


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