University of Minnesota

Faculty Member, Center for Bioethics

Associate Professor

Center for Bioethics, College of Pharmacy, Consortium for the Study of the Asias & School of Public Health

About

My research addresses ethical and social issues related to transnational medical travel (aka “medical tourism”) and the emergence of a global marketplace in health services.  I have a particular interest in studying health-related travel originating in Canada and the United States.  Though I try to follow developments in various health care destinations I’m particularly intrigued by the different ways in which India, Singapore, and Thailand have attempted to position themselves as regional and international hubs for medical travel.  My early publications on this subject attempt to offer a narrative about how medical tourism companies, destination hospitals, national and regional governments, tourism associations, and hotel chains have all played parts in marketing the idea of seeking healthcare in a global marketplace.  Strong-form advocates of liberalization of economies and global trade in health services emphasize the benefits of breaking the constraints of local health care networks and viewing healthcare as much like any other tradable commodity.  My work argues that we should also attend to harms and risks to individual medical travelers, public health systems, and global health as increasing numbers of patients cross borders in search of timely, affordable, and high-quality health care.  I’ve learned a great deal from social scientists studying particular medical travelers in specific locations.  Transnational medical travel is a subject that crosses disciplines and as a result I often find myself reading articles by researchers in anthropology, geography, health communication, public health, sociology, and other fields.  I’ve also incorporated some social science methods into my own research program. 

Some of my earlier publications address such topics as culture, religion, and ethics in end-of-life care; barriers and bridges between bioethics and the social sciences; ethics, public debate, and science policy; and agenda-setting in bioethics.  I plan to revisit several of these themes but for the moment I’ve got plenty to do writing about ethical and social dimensions of medical travel.                   

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