Dental Tourism Abroad
The dental tourism is a rapidly growing niche section of the travel & tourism industry, which is yet to be researched on the global scale. Poland, in recent years, has gained in popularity as a dental tourism destination for British people, as it offers quality and competitively priced dental treatments abroad.
In spite of gradually spreading awareness of health tourism and its benefits amongst Western European countries, relatively little academic resources are available on the subject, especially regarding health tourism in Poland. Advancing the knowledge of the subject presents a good value as the medical tourism is predicted to grow even further in the next 5 years. It is believed that it will become an important niche of tourism industry in terms of both, revenue and inflow of people.
Dental tourism, as a niche segment of the travel and tourism industry is a relatively new phenomenon in most developed countries. It is a form of new tourism concept, described by Chris Cooper in Aspect of Tourism. Not only did he describe mass tourism as standardised and not attractive anymore but also he praised segmentation in the travel environment as the way forward. Rupa Chanda in Bulletin of the World Health Organisation gives an overview on the trade in health services via consumption abroad. He sees health tourism as an opportunity for developing countries to improve their economies and health systems but also says that it can have negative effects. He emphasizes, though, that many of the adverse implications of trade in health services are due to internal factors within particular countries rather than effects of globalization. More information you can find here Medical treatments in Poland.
Becca Hutchinson (2005) bases her article about medical tourism for University of Delaware on the book: Hospitality 2010: The Future of Hospitality and Travel by Cetron et al (2005).In it she tries to explain the trend for medical treatments abroad among Americans and give reasons for its popularity. She also predicts the growth in the medical tourism market globally due to various macroenvironmental factors. Veronica English, et al (2002) argues that although the aspect of globalization of health care is becoming better-documented, very little attention has been paid to the ethical dimensions of this process. They describe health tourism not only as the act of traveling abroad to obtain a treatment but also as a migration of health care professionals. Bishop, Litch (2000) in the article Medical tourism can do harm emphasize that in many instances medical treatments should not be performed after a single consultation. They claim that health tourism, although cost effective, can actually do harm to patients. They highlight the need for a proper recognition of the patient condition before any treatment can be undertaken.
The cost comparison of dental treatments in developing and developed countries certainly helps to understand why dental tourism is a rapidly growing market not only in Europe but also worldwide. Information obtained from The Polish Chamber of Physicians and Dentists allow understanding how difficult is the process of becoming a dentist in Poland. They claim that Polish dentists are among the best practitioners in Europe and this is due to an elaborate medical educational programme that is applied in Poland.
Other usefull information can be found on:
Dentist in Liverpool. Find dentists in Liverpool area
Health screening abroad - Professional medical assessments for adults
Implanty dentystyczne - information on implants in Polish
Dentists in Tenerife - dental treatments in Spain
Other websites in Polish
Stomatolodzy Krakow * Stomatolodzy Wroclaw * Dental Marketing
Implanty dentystyczne Dobry dentysta Krakow
Other websites (not only dentistry related):
