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Medical Tourism

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Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics

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Abstract

People travel to destinations or cross national borders in order to obtain health care. The practice has given rise to ethical issues revolving around general thematic and implementation areas as discussed below. Major themes include the economic value of medical tourism and the latter’s tendency to amplify health-care and economic inequalities. With countries invested in medical tourism and health-care programs in industrialized countries increasingly downsized, there are push and pull factors that result in a net increase of medical tourists in various locales. The larger health-care and economic inequalities could be reproduced (if not worsened) in medical tourism. Not to be ignored are the issues of safety, liability, responsibility, and variability in ethical regulation of activities relating to medical tourism. Differences in economic, medical, and ethical regulations between and among countries are bound to create problems and challenges for medical tourists and for society in general. Salient practice areas in medical tourism include stem cell therapy, organ transplantation, reproductive health, body modification or enhancement, faith healing, and traditional and complementary medicine; each area presents unique ethical challenges that are mapped out and clarified.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Leonardo de Castro & Jaryl Gan

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines

    Peter Sy

Authors
  1. Leonardo de Castro
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  2. Peter Sy
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  3. Jaryl Gan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leonardo de Castro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University Center for Healthcare Ethics, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Henk ten Have

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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de Castro, L., Sy, P., Gan, J. (2015). Medical Tourism. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_282-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_282-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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