I look well

It might sound like an unusual concept, but medical tourism is growing in popularity. People are combining their holidays with surgical measures, going abroad for private treatment that they can’t get at home, or can’t get at the same price.

This activity has been ongoing for a while. Eastern European plastic surgeons and dentists have been working hard to attract a UK and Western European clientele, while Thailand, China, and other Southeast Asian countries have been visited by patients from Singapore and similar countries. Residents of many countries are going abroad for medical procedures at a significant discount.

Procedures, especially cosmetic ones which won’t be covered by insurance or national health plans, are a mere fraction of the cost of those performed at home. That means that many procedures, such as breast implants and face lifts, which were once available only to the very rich, are now accessible to less wealthy citizens if they wish to travel. However, there are concerns about the safety and quality of the procedures performed abroad.

That’s because it can be difficult to tell if the doctor or facility in another country has the qualifications of your local practitioner. Standards in other countries are often different, too. This means that if you’re looking for a medical holiday, you’ll want to lots of checking up to make sure you’ll be treated in the best facilities you can get.

As medical tourism becomes more popular, with more doctors looking for foreign business, quality could be a larger concern than it is now. If you’re thinking about having medical procedures performed abroad, it’s important to make sure that the doctor you’ve chosen is properly registered with that country’s medical regulatory board. Be willing to ask hard questions about the procedures you’ll need to undergo.

There are other concerns, too, that have nothing to do with the competence of the surgeon or how up to date the facilities are. Travel is stressful, and it’s unwise to get on a plane immediately after a major procedure. It’s also hard to get good post-operative care when your surgeon is hundreds or thousands of miles away.

This is why so many people interested in medical tourism turn their visit into a holiday. Staying a week or so after coming out of the hospital gives your body time to recover, reducing the chances of a complication from travel.

One of the big reasons that medical tourism appeals so much is that public health systems are often over taxed. For non urgent care, it can take some time to receive treatment. The speed and convenience of care in another country often appeals, with patients in the UK and Canada possibly waiting as long as a year for a hip replacement, but able to have an operation the day after arrival in places like Hong Kong, Cuba, India or the Philippines.

Depending on the circumstances, you might want to take advantage of the opportunity to use your next holiday for medical tourism. Just be sure to do your homework and allow plenty of time for your body to recover from the procedure.