Medical tourism is the generally accepted phrase used to describe people traveling outside their home country for medical care, dental and surgical procedures along with rest and relaxation. It came to use back in the late 1990s when hospitals in the Far East targeted the international market for medical services. It is the result of skyrocketing private medical care in the United States, as well as long waiting periods in the national health systems of some European countries. It is also the product of improved medical skills, technology, and facilities in the developing world.

Initially, medical tourists were composed of only the affluent and well-to-do people from all over the world, who could afford to travel abroad to receive the best medical attention. Although many wealthy people still do so, medical tourists now also consist of average earning individuals, or individuals without access to affordable healthcare. The standards of medical care and quality of facilities in the major metropolitan areas of the world are now comparable to those in the United States, while costs are much lower. Medical tourism, as it pertains to the U.S., UK, Canadian, Middle Eastern and Western European residents, is largely a price and convenience driven experience.

Medical tourists today come from all walks of life. In common, they have a desire for affordable, high quality care or surgery that is beyond their financial means or unavailable to them at home.

There are two categories of medical tourists. The first is the tourist who is on holiday and decides to purchase medical services that don’t interfere with leisure travel like check-ups, dental care and eye laser surgery. These are basic, low risk and low-cost procedures. The second is the tourist who specifically comes for healthcare. This medical tourist is usually coming for more intensive medical and surgical procedures like cosmetic surgery, spinal surgery or cardiac surgery.

Medical tourism is an option worth exploring for anyone who is facing significant out-of-pocket expenses for health care. In the United States, by most estimates, there are more than 40 million uninsured persons, and many millions more who are underinsured. Medical tourism is also a viable option for all individuals considering any elective surgery, not covered by insurance. Specifically, the demand for high-quality, lower-cost cosmetic surgery and dentistry has been on the edge of the wave of medical tourism originating in the United States and Western Europe.

Going abroad for care is also a reasonable choice for patients who want care not available to them locally. Some hip resurfacing procedures, for example, have been performed in India for years but have only recently been approved in the United States. The use of silicone gel breast implants, sought by many cosmetic surgery patients, has been restricted for years in the United States but they are widely available in the rest of the world. Procedures related to fertility, stem cell research and organ transplantation also draw a number of patients from all over the world.

Finally, medical tourism can be an option worth considering for those in countries with what many call "rationed" health care, particularly Canada and the United Kingdom. Though both countries have national health care, there can be a lengthy wait for procedures and surgeries that are classified as non emergency. In the UK and Canada, this inconvenient forced wait is applicable to a large number of orthopedic surgeries that cause great pain and require extensive wait times before local health care is made available to patients.

Generally, when people ask if going abroad for surgery is "safe," (and they do ask it, just that way) what they really want to know is "Is it as safe as if I went to my local doctor or hospital?" And the short answer is that "Yes, it is probably just about as safe" - with the provision that the patient does his or her homework, picks a good doctor or surgeon and facility and plans the trip wisely.

Many medical tourists take nothing for granted, as they might at home; they want to know everything that might happen, everything they might encounter in advance, and thus are perhaps better prepared for their care or surgery than they might have been if they had stayed closer to home.

Medical and graduate medical education in the Philippines is patterned after the American model of education. Filipino Physicians have completed four years of undergraduate studies, four years of medical school, and a year of clinical internship before they took the licensure examination.

It is followed by a three- or five-year postgraduate residency training in a specified clinical specialty, then a certifying examination by the appropriate medical specialty board.

Thereafter, physicians undergo fellowship training in various sub-specialties which entails an additional two or three years, and a subsequent certifying examination by the medical sub-specialty board. All in all, physicians undergo at least 10 years of medical education and training.

In sum, medical specialists in the Philippines, especially at the Makati Medical Center, are one of the best educated, trained and highly skilled practitioners in Asia; most if not all have graduate medical training in the US, Singapore, Japan, Australia, or in Europe. All communicate very well in English.

Medical care outside of the U.S. and the so-called developed nations of the world is less expensive for much the same reasons it is less expensive to produce DVD players or textiles abroad; they have less expensive land; it is less expensive to put up a building, they have lower labor costs, lower taxes, lower administrative costs, lower insurance rates and so on. It is a mistake to single out any one thing as being responsible for the difference.

*Source: Philippine Medical Tourism