November will see the launch of a major new book on medical tourism from a US lawyer who divides the medical tourism community between those who believe he raises important points, and others who believe he is “bad for business”.
Glenn Cohen’s new book "Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics" is from Oxford University Press. It claims to be the first comprehensive legal and ethical analysis of medical tourism; examining both the legal and ethical issues raised by medical tourism and how the two interact. It provides data and explanations of the industry and tackles what the publisher says are the most prevalent legal and ethical issues facing medical tourism today.
The publisher’s advance notice for the book says, "Can your employer require you to travel to India for a hip replacement as a condition of insurance coverage? If injury results, can you sue the doctor, hospital or insurer for medical malpractice in the country where you live? Can a country prohibit its citizens from helping a relative travel to Switzerland for assisted suicide? What about travel for abortion? Glenn Cohen tackles these important questions, and provides the first comprehensive legal and ethical analysis of medical tourism. Some seek legitimate services like hip replacements and travel to avoid queues, save money, or because their insurer has given them an incentive to do so. Others seek to circumvent prohibitions on accessing services at home and go abroad to receive abortions, assisted suicide, commercial surrogacy, or experimental stem cell treatments. The author focuses on patients traveling for cardiac bypass and other legal services to India, Thailand, and Mexico, and analyses issues of quality of care, disease transmission, liability, private and public health insurance, and the effects of this trade on foreign health care systems. He goes on to examine medical tourism for services illegal in the patient’s home country, such as organ purchase, abortion, assisted suicide, fertility services, and experimental stem cell treatments. Cohen examines issues such as extraterritorial criminalization, exploitation, immigration, and the protection of children."
Cohen is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and his publishers claim he is one of the world’s leading experts on medical ethics and health law.