Reducing the scale? From global images to border crossings in medical tourism
Reducing the scale? From global images to border crossings in medical tourism
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DOI：
10.1111/glob.12136
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发表时间：
2016-10-01
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Connell, John
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Connell, John
国际医疗旅行在过去20年中有所增加，变得更加多样化和复杂，尽管关于其增长和结构的定义和数据不足。许多国家，特别是全球南方国家，出于战略和防御原因，寻求发展医疗旅游。很少有成功的。医疗旅游的标准描述和形象暗示着全球市场、精英患者旅行者和整容手术的主导地位，以及医院连锁的私有化和公司化。然而，大多数国际医疗旅行都是短途的、散居的、跨越相邻和附近的边界，相对贫穷的病人在适当的文化背景下寻求更便宜、更有效或更容易获得的护理，以获得简单的程序。社交网络，而不是互联网，塑造了对目的地的选择和决定。国际边界的漏洞对医疗旅行至关重要，导致北方出现正式的跨界卫生区域，南方出现自发的非正式区域，以及一些区域中心和等级制度。全球化的重要性不及边境地区医疗保健的基层跨国主义。
International medical travel has increased in the last 20 years, becoming more diverse and complex, although definitions and data on its growth and structure are inadequate. Many countries, especially in the Global South, have sought to develop medical tourism for both strategic and defensive reasons. Few have been successful. Standard descriptions and images of medical tourism suggest global markets, elite patient travellers and the dominance of cosmetic surgery, alongside the privatization and corporatization of hospital chains. Most international medical travel is, however, short-distance, diasporic, across adjacent and nearby borders, and of relatively poor patients seeking cheaper, more effective or available care in appropriate cultural contexts, for straightforward procedures. Social networks, rather than the internet, shape choices and decisions on destinations. Porous international borders are crucial to medical travel and have resulted in the emergence of formal trans-border health regions in the North and spontaneous informal regions in the South, alongside some regional hubs and hierarchies. Globalization is less significant than the grassroots transnationalism of borderland health care.