From exotic spa treatments to euthanasia, this book examines the background and social context of medical tourism—the practice of traveling for health care. This work also documents how this industry is reshaping the face of medicine worldwide for individuals, local communities, and national health care systems.
Medical Tourism: A Reference Handbook provides an accessible overview of the state of medical tourism, written from a balanced, unbiased perspective. The authors provide relevant social context for this controversial topic, discussing the state of extremely limited research data on medical tourism; the ethical issues involved, such as traveling to have a black-market organ transplanted; and the significant impact of medical tourism on health care systems—that of the United States, and those of the destination countries.
The book highlights many contemporary problems, controversies, and implications of medical tourism both for individuals and health care systems, and presents thought-provoking potential solutions. The topic of medical tourism is also addressed against the backdrop of current healthcare reforms in the United States. Readers can reference a wealth of additional material on medical tourism, ranging from original documents to extensive directories of selected organizations and resources.
Features
- A timeline of important historical and contemporary events in history of medical tourism
- An extensive bibliography to assist readers toward additional resources for further research
Contemporary World Issues
This award-winning series offers comprehensive, one-volume reference handbooks on important topics related to health, education, the environment, and social and ethical issues.
24-hour cable news. Millions of internet sites. Information overload. How can we sort through the information? Assess the analyses? Trust the sources?
A world of questions demands a library of answers.
Contemporary World Issues covers the controversial topics that students, readers, and citizens want to read about, write about, and know more about.
Features
Subject coverage spans six main categories:
- Criminal Justice
- Environment
- Gender and Ethnicity
- Politics, Law, and Government
- Science, Technology, and Medicine
- Society
Each volume offers a rich array of resources:
- A background and history essay that provides essential context and grounding for further study
- A balanced summary of ongoing controversies and proposed solutions that show numerous paths for further research on pressing, contemporary questions
- A forum of authoritative perspective essays by experts, offering a broad spectrum of arguments on the issues
- Carefully selected annotated documents, tables, and graphs that support statistical literacy and investigation of primary sources
- A chronology of events, legislation, and movements that place events in sequence and draw connections between them
- Annotated lists of print, web, and multimedia resources that power the next steps for in-depth research
- Profiles of key players and organizations
- A glossary of key terms
