Medical tourism describes a new pattern of movement of people for medical care,
particularly from wealthier to poorer countries. Using the example of Thailand,
where annually a million non-Thai patients seek medical treatment, this article
provides a critical analysis of the political economic contexts for this medical
migration. Drawing on urban geography and heterodox economics, the article considers
medical tourism as an interaction of bodily, national, and global scales shaped by
processes of globalization. This approach provides a thick context for the
transnational care of bodies while proposing that the bodily scale also has a role
in reformulating the scale of the nation.
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