Author News .. Comments/Reviews .. Updates/Corrections .. More Links ..
Updated 3/9/07 ...
Updated 11/14/06 ... Interview with KPCC (southern California) info and sound file on Author News page
10/31/06 ... Happy Halloween, all! with links to ABC News interview, etc.
Beauty from Afar (Amazon link) is a new book about the phenomenon that has come to be known as "Medical Tourism" -- people traveling abroad from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries with expensive and/or rationed health care to countries in Central/South America, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa for high-quality, lower-cost medical care than they can get at home.
I came to research and write Beauty from Afar after my own experience with having extensive dental work in Costa Rica in 2004, which is chronicled here. The book examines traveling abroad for heath care from all angles and presents it as an option for patients/consumers.
Though medical tourism is increasingly in the news, most people are unaware that it is becoming a de facto part of the medical system in the United States. Perhaps one in 20 of all those in the U.S. who have cosmetic surgery end up going out of the country for it. Increasingly, U.S. residents who are uninsured or underinsured, or who want elective surgeries and procedures, are considering and choosing doctors, surgeons, medical facilities and hospitals abroad, where costs are a fraction of what they are at home and quality of care is substantially the same or -- some would argue -- even better.
Beautyfromafar.com is mentioned in my book as a web site where I will update information about medical tourism. The book just came out and I expect to be updating this page regularly.
At least for now, though, I am writing/blogging about the book on the Amazon site rather than doing so here. Also, a notice to medical tourism businesses and web sites: you can neither buy nor beg your way onto this site, though I'll be happy to answer questions and respond to comments, please use this handy form.
Regarding links: I encourage people to link to this site, of course, and to the pages where Beauty from Afar is offered for sale. As indicated above, I am not at this time offering any reciprocity. It is my opinion that the book is full of information of interest and use to consumers and that many sites and businesses, large and small, will benefit by associating themselves with the book. If I do link to other sites, I will explain why; those I offer below are (obviously) directly related to the book:
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Beauty from Afar page at Amazon.com. I hope that people will buy the book, of course, but I don't have a preference as to where they might do so. I'm linking to Amazon only for now because I can actually write and blog about the book there, where folks are most likely to find it in the first place. When the book is available, I hope people will look for it in actual stores and ask about it if they can't find it even if they are undecided about buying it. There is no law that says a bookstore has to stock Beauty from Afar and an expression of interest in a store may help the management decide to order the book.
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Author promo video at Google video. Four minutes of me talking about medical tourism and the book. The same video is available for viewing at jeffbot.blip.tv, in Quicktime and Flash formats. These are big files and I don't recommend that anyone try to view them unless they have a broadband (cable, DSL, T1 or fractional) Internet connection.
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Original article about my trip to the dentist in Costa Rica. Regarding that specific experience, the lengthy article is more in depth than what is in the book.
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Dr. John Corey's home page. John, a noted plastic surgeon in Scottsdale, Ariz., wrote the foreword for Beauty from Afar. He does not endorse or condemn medical tourism, but recognizes the fact of it and discusses it objectively and knowledgably. I strove to inform Beauty from Afar with his "safety first" approach.
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The home page of Bumrungrad International hospital in Thailand, perhaps the leading destination in the world for medical tourists. I am grateful to Bumrungrad's CEO, Curtis Schroeder, for writing a fitting afterword for Beauty from Afar. Bumrungrad is a recognized leader in international medicine and Curt's words are the perfect way to close my book ... and open the door on the future.
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You can contact me at jss@beautyfromafar.com and I will generally respond within a day or so.
-jeff schult / 9.27.2006
