Medical Tourism and Transnational Health Care

Medicine and tourism have become separated in contemporary popular consciousness. The former implies anything but a pleasurable experience and the latter presumes a healthy disposition for participation. We argue that this popular conception of the separation of tourism and medicine ignores an historical continuity of lineage from the 18th century pursuit of a 'cure' at resorts and spas, to 20th century notions of holidays as worker welfare through to global patient mobility in the quest for cutting-edge medical interventions in so-called 'untreatable' conditions. Disciplinary divisions within the academy have reinforced the separation between medicine and tourism in popular culture, but there is now an emergent challenge to re-think the medicine/tourism nexus. Under the influence of transnational health care consumption, two very contrasting traditions of Western thought are now confronting one another. This book provides a comprehensive landscape of diverse research communities' attempts to capture its implications for existing bodies of knowledge in selected aspects of medicine, medical ethics, health policy and management, and tourism studies.

David Botterill is Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Tourism at the University of Westminster, UK, Professor Emeritus in the Welsh Centre for Tourism Research, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK, and an Associate of the NHTV University of Applied Sciences Breda, The Netherlands. He has published extensively in tourism and leisure studies journals and recently co-edited Tourism and Crime: Key Issues (2010) and Key Concepts in Tourism Research (2012).

Guido Pennings is Professor of Ethics and Bioethics at Ghent University, Belgium. He is also Affiliate Lecturer in the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies at Cambridge University, UK, and Guest Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Free University Brussels, Belgium. He has published approximately 180 articles in international journals and books.

Tomas Mainil is Lecturer and Researcher at Breda University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. He is responsible for the Research Unit 'Transnational health care in sending and receiving contexts' at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Understanding and is a Researcher at the Research Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (CELLO), University of Antwerp, Belgium.

1. Introduction; David Botterill, Tomas Mainil and Guido Pennings
2. Sickness, Health, Tourism and the Ever Present Threat of Death: Nineteenth Century Spa and Seasonal Travel; David M. Bruce
3. A Way through the Maze: Exploring Differences and Overlaps between Wellness and Medical Tourism Providers; Cornelia Voigt and Jennifer H. Laing
4. Caring For Non-Residents in Barbados: Examining the Implications of Inbound Transnational Medical Care for Public and Private Health Care; Jeremy Snyder, Valorie A. Crooks, Leigh Turner, Rory Johnston, Henry Fraser, Laura Kadowaki, Mary Choi and Krystyna Adams
5. Tourists with Severe Disability; Angie Luther
6. Beauty and the Beach: Mapping Cosmetic Surgery Tourism; Ruth Holliday, Kate Hardy, David Bell, Emily Hunter, Meredith Jones, Elpseth Probyn and Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor
7. Cross-Border Reproductive Care around the World: Recent Controversies; Wannes Van Hoof and Guido Pennings
8. Transplant Tourism; Thomas D. Schiano and Rosamond Rhodes
9. The European Cross-Border Patient as both Citizen and Consumer: Public Health and Health System Implications; Tomas Mainil, Matt Commers and Kai Michelsen
10. Canadian Medical Travel Companies and the Globalization of Healthcare; Leigh Turner
11. The Ethical Management of Medical Tourism; Guido Pennings
12. Habermas, Transnational Health Care and Cross-Culturalism; Tomas Mainil, Vincent Platenkamp and Herman Meulemans
13. The Impact of Medical Tourism in Low- And Middle-Income Countries; Melisa Martínez Álvarez, Richard D. Smith and Rupa Chanda
14. The Impact of the Internet on Medical Tourism; Daniel Horsfall, Neil Lunt, Hannah King, Johanna Hanefeld and Richard D. Smith
15. Towards a Model of Sustainable Health Destination Management Based On Health Regions; Tomas Mainil, Keith Dinnie, David Botterill, Vincent Platenkamp, Francis van Loon and Herman Meulemans