Medical Tourism in Developing Countries

Western patients are increasingly traveling to developing countries for health care and developing countries are increasingly offering their skills and facilities to paying foreign customers. This international trade in medical services has huge economic potential for developing countries and serious implications for health care across the globe. The potential is explored in this book through analysis of the market for medical tourism and identification of its link to economic growth. The authors propose that medical tourism is not a universally feasible growth strategy. Instead, it is successful only in countries with economic and political advantages that enable them to navigate around international and domestic obstacles to trade in medical services. It is also suggested that a successful medical tourism industry, when coupled with cooperation between the private and public sectors, may lead to public health improvements in developing countries.

Milica Bookman is Professor of Economics at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.  She is the author of nine books, including Tourists, Migrants and Refugees as well as The Demographic Struggle for Power.  She is the recipient of the Tengelmann Award for excellence in research.
Karla Bookman is a recent graduate of Columbia Law School, and has completed internships with the World Intellectual Property Organization and a judge in the Southern District of New York. She is currently a litigator at a New York firm.