Medical Tourism Patient Mortality

2022 ◽  
pp. 143-162
Author(s):  
Alicia Mason ◽  
Sakshi Bhati ◽  
Ran Jiang ◽  
Elizabeth A. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
Medical Tourism ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Patient Death ◽  
Bereavement Counseling ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Social Support Systems

Medical tourism is a process in which a consumer travels from one's place of residence and receives medical treatment, thus becoming a patient. Patients Beyond Borders (PBB) forecasts some 1.9 million Americans will travel outside the United States for medical care in 2019. This chapter explores media representations of patient mortality associated with medical tourism within the global news media occurring between 2009-2019. A qualitative content analysis of 50 patient mortality cases found that (1) a majority of media representations of medical tourism patient death are of middle-class, minority females between 25-55 years of age who seek cosmetic surgery internationally; (2) sudden death, grief, and bereavement counseling is noticeably absent from medical tourism providers (MTPs); and (3) risk information from authority figures within the media reports is often vague and abstract. A detailed list of health communication recommendations and considerations for future medical tourists and their social support systems are provided.

Medical Tourism Patient Mortality

2020 ◽  
pp. 206-225
Author(s):  
Alicia Mason ◽  
Sakshi Bhati ◽  
Ran Jiang ◽  
Elizabeth A. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
Medical Tourism ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Patient Death ◽  
Bereavement Counseling ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Social Support Systems

Medical tourism is a process in which a consumer travels from one's place of residence and receives medical treatment, thus becoming a patient. Patients Beyond Borders (PBB) forecasts some 1.9 million Americans will travel outside the United States for medical care in 2019. This chapter explores media representations of patient mortality associated with medical tourism within the global news media occurring between 2009-2019. A qualitative content analysis of 50 patient mortality cases found that (1) a majority of media representations of medical tourism patient death are of middle-class, minority females between 25-55 years of age who seek cosmetic surgery internationally; (2) sudden death, grief, and bereavement counseling is noticeably absent from medical tourism providers (MTPs); and (3) risk information from authority figures within the media reports is often vague and abstract. A detailed list of health communication recommendations and considerations for future medical tourists and their social support systems are provided.

scholarly journals Transnational Body Projects: Media Representations of Cosmetic Surgery Tourism in Argentina and the United States

2013 ◽  
pp. 57-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erynn Masi De Casanova ◽  
Barbara Sutton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Medical Tourism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The Media ◽  
Professional Resources ◽  
Transnational Body

Cosmetic surgery tourism (CST) is part of the growing trend known as medical tourism. As people in the global North travel to less affluent countries to modify their bodies through cosmetic surgery, their transnational body projects are influenced by both economic "materialities" and traveling cultural "imaginaries." This article presents a content analysis of media representations of cosmetic surgery tourism in a major country sending patient-tourists (the United States) and a popular receiving country (Argentina). The power relations of globalization appear to be played out in the media. U.S. sources assert U.S. hegemony through a discourse emphasizing the risks of CST in the global South, in contrast with medical excellence in the U.S. Argentine sources portray Argentina as a country struggling to gain a foothold in the global economy, but staking a claim on modernity through cultural and professional resources. The analyzed articles also offer a glimpse of how patient-tourists fuel sectors of the global economy by placing their bodies at the forefront, seeking to merge medical procedures and touristic pleasures. There is a gender dimension to these portrayals, as women are especially likely to engage in CST. Their transnational body projects are tainted by negative media portrayals, which represent them as ignorant, uninformed, and driven mainly by the low price of surgery overseas. Our comparative approach sheds light on converging and diverging perspectives on both ends of the cosmetic surgery tourism chain, showing that patterns in CST portrayals differ according to the position of a country in the world-system.

“A Life Lived”: Collective Memory and White Racial Framing in Digital Opioid Overdose Obituaries

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 320-337
Author(s):  
Kevin Revier
Keyword(s):  
Predominantly White ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
News Media ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Opioid Overdose ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Opioid Crisis ◽  
Overdose Deaths ◽  
Racial Framing

With a rise in overdose deaths in the United States, opioid awareness has come in a variety of ways. One of these, as reporters suggest, is obituary writing. Obituaries are considered in news media as offering “brutally frank” depictions of addiction that “chronicle the toll of heroin.” Moreover, obituary sharing by parents and loved ones has increasingly taken place on digital platforms, memorial websites expanding the visibility of overdose death while facilitating the building of virtual grief communities. Not solely commemorating individual loss, obituaries thus contain symbolic power—they reflect dominant social values and shape collective memory. As such, overdose obituaries inform how opioid crisis is framed, represented, and addressed. From a qualitative content analysis of 533 opioid-related U.S. obituaries published on Legacy.com and ObitTree.com , I find that while obituaries reduce stigma associated with drug use, addiction, and overdose, they primarily tell white tales of addiction. In affording a white racial framing of drug addiction, obituary writing corresponds with a larger whitewashing of the opioid crisis while implicitly constructing symbolic boundaries between those memorialized, who are predominantly white and middle-class, and those who are deemed as raced and classed Others. Such storytelling, particularly when popularized in news media and made visible on digital platforms, contributes to ongoing systemic inequality in the prevailing drug war.

scholarly journals “Superbugs” in the Risk Society: Assessing the Reflexive Function of North American Newspaper Coverage of Antimicrobial Resistance

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402090180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Capurro
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
News Media ◽  
North American ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Reflexive Modernization ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Populations At Risk ◽  
Reflexive Function

This article examines how antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is covered in four elite North American newspapers and whether the dailies act as sites of reflexive modernization. I draw on risk society theory to situate AMR as a modern risk and news media as key spaces for reflexivity. Through a qualitative content analysis of 89 news stories on AMR, this study shows that this risk is communicated through inaccurate definitions and oversimplified accounts of the causes, populations at risk, and preventive measures. Media representations of health risks affect public perceptions of risk and risk prevention. The dailies, however, seldom expressed reflexive modernization, a key function of “mass media” in the Risk Society, which I argue could be due to the very complexity of “modern risks.” Lack of reflexivity in the media regarding AMR could delay crucial policy and institutional changes necessary to tackle this risk.

“Medical Tourism” and the Global Marketplace in Health Services: U.S. Patients, International Hospitals, and the Search for Affordable Health Care

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Turner
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
Medical Tourism ◽  
Safety Information ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
Global Marketplace

Health services are now advertised in a global marketplace. Hip and knee replacements, ophthalmologic procedures, cosmetic surgery, cardiac care, organ transplants, and stem cell injections are all available for purchase in the global health services marketplace. “Medical tourism” companies market “sun and surgery” packages and arrange care at international hospitals in Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, and other destination nations. Just as automobile manufacturing and textile production moved outside the United States, American patients are “offshoring” themselves to facilities that use low labor costs to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. Proponents of medical tourism argue that a global market in health services will promote consumer choice, foster competition among hospitals, and enable customers to purchase high-quality care at medical facilities around the world. Skeptics raise concerns about quality of care and patient safety, information disclosure to patients, legal redress when patients are harmed while receiving care at international hospitals, and harms to public health care systems in destination nations. The emergence of a global market in health services will have profound consequences for health insurance, delivery of health services, patient-physician relationships, publicly funded health care, and the spread of medical consumerism.

scholarly journals Clinicians’ Perceptions of The Health Status of Formerly Detained Immigrants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Hampton ◽  
Ranit Mishori ◽  
Marsha Griffin ◽  
Claire Hillier ◽  
Elizabeth Pirrotta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
News Media ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Survey Responses

Abstract Background In the past decade, the U.S. immigration detention system regularly detained more than 30,000 people; in 2019 prior to the pandemic, the detention population exceeded 52,000 people. Inhumane detention conditions have been documented by internal government watchdogs, news media and human rights groups, finding over-crowding, poor hygiene and sanitation and poor and delayed medical care, as well as verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Methods This study surveyed health professionals across the United States who had provided care for immigrants who were recently released from immigration detention to assess clinician perceptions about the adverse health impact of immigration detention on migrant populations based on real-life clinical encounters. There were 150 survey responses, of which 85 clinicians observed medical conditions attributed to detention. Results These 85 clinicians reported seeing a combined 1300 patients with a medical issue related to their time in detention, including patients with delayed access to medical care or medicine in detention, patients with new or acute health conditions including infection and injury attributed to detention and patients with worsened chronic conditions or special needs conditions. Clinicians also provided details regarding sentinel cases, categorized into the following themes: Pregnant women, Children, Mentally Ill, COVID-19, and Other serious health issue. Conclusions This is the first survey, to our knowledge, of health care professionals treating individuals upon release from detention. Due to the lack of transparency by federal entities and limited access to detainees, this survey serves as a source of credible information about conditions experienced within immigration detention facilities and is a means of corroborating immigrant testimonials and media reports. These findings can help inform policy discussions regarding systematic changes to the delivery of healthcare in detention, quality assurance and transparent reporting.

Journalistic Depictions of Uncertainty about Climate Change

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Painter
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Many

Media research has historically concentrated on the many uncertainties in climate science either as a dominant discourse in media treatments measured by various forms of quantitative and qualitative content analysis or as the presence of skepticism, in its various manifestations, in political discourse and media coverage. More research is needed to assess the drivers of such skepticism in the media, the changing nature of skeptical discourse in some countries, and important country differences as to the prevalence of skepticism in political debate and media coverage. For example, why are challenges to mainstream climate science common in some Anglophone countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia but not in other Western nations? As the revolution in news consumption via new players and platforms causes an increasingly fragmented media landscape, there are significant gaps in understanding where, why, and how skepticism appears. In particular, we do not know enough about the ways new media players depict the uncertainties around climate science and how this may differ from previous coverage in traditional and mainstream news media. We also do not know how their emphasis on visual content affects audience understanding of climate change.

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