Medical Travel: The Ethical and Legal Challenges

Medical tourism is a term referring to the people traveling to other countries to obtain medical care. Like any other rapid growing indus­try, medical tourism has prompted ethical and legal issues. These issues are mainly pertained to malpractice and consumer protection. Beside these, risk management, foreign hospital liabilities, international ad­vocacy, facility ownership, intellectual property, organ trafficking and ethical issues are other matters that should be addressed. Travel medi­cine also contains alternative medicine and telemedicine. Therefore, comprehensive and detailed legal regulations should be performed to govern mentioned issues. Otherwise, in future this industry will face serious challenges.