About a year ago, I wrote about the first full-length book to take up the subject of medical and dental tourism in a serious and scientific fashion. The book is Patients Beyond Borders by Josef Woodman, which carefully and soberly lists and describes those hospitals overseas that provide competent medical treatment in various fields at a a highly affordable price -- and those that don't. For the first time, Americans who have no medical insurance, or whose medical insurance doesn't cover the treatment they need, have a way of learning where they can go to obtain that care at a price they can handle (even considering the cost of travel).

Woodman's book was the first to point out, as far as I know, that many of these overseas hospitals are accredited by the very same organization that accredits U.S. hospitals -- and which employs exactly the same criteria. It goes on to point out that many of these overseas hospitals actually have better success rates, lower infection rates, more comprehensive comfort and care, than the average U.S. hospital. Photographs of hospitals in Singapore and Thailand, as one example, are an eye-opener, revealing the most modern facilities imaginable and an unusually high ratio of staff to patient (you can see some of those photographs in www.patientsbeyondborders.com).

Thus, in Thailand's famed Bumrundgrad Hospital, a literal army of nurses and attendants surround you with the most careful attentions.

Last week saw the publication of the second, revised edition of Woodman's Patients Without Borders, and yesterday I placed a phone call to him in Hong Kong, where he is in the course of an Asian tour visiting still other hospitals (Hong Kong itself is not one of the places he recommends, because of Hong Kong's high medical fees).

Woodman advised me that the new revised edition has added, to the former list, appraisals of hospitals in Israel, Jordan, South Korea, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Turkey. He was particularly enthusiastic about the low cost and high level of medical care in Taiwan. He pointed out that each of these new destinations excels in a particular medical specialty.

I asked him whether the U.S. medical profession had attacked the book; whether, in particular, U.S. doctors had been asked to write critical reviews of it. This hasn't happened, he responded; in fact, at a recent Harvard conference, some participants complained that Patients Without Borders had succeeded too well -- that by revealing the availability of low-cost medical care overseas, it had removed pressures on the U.S. medical system to reform itself! So careful and guarded are the book's factual assertions that apparently, U.S. doctors have thus far found nothing to attack.

The second, revised edition is apparently in the bookstores by now, and can also be purchased through Amazon.com. Or else, you can write directly for a copy (enclosing $22.95) to Healthy Travel Media, P.O.Box 17057, Chapel Hill, NC 27516. Or call 919/370-7380. If you have no medical insurance, and need medical or dental treatment, you might consider obtaining a copy of a book that has clarified the way to a new form of travel: medical or dental tourism.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: medical travel