Dr. Andrew Weil, MD, is a prolific author, perhaps best known for establishing and popularizing the field of integrative medicine, which combines conventional medical treatments and alternative treatments for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of their safety and effectiveness. His web site, DrWeil.com, is among the most visited medical sites on the Internet. The “Ask Dr. Weil” column, from the site, is a cottage industry unto itself; “Dr. Weil has raised dispensing health advice to an art form,” says reviewer Erica Jorgensen at Amazon of his bestseller Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being.

But I didn’t know until yesterday that Dr. Weil had ever had anything to say about medical tourism. I really should have known better. In an “Ask Dr. Weil” column from last fall, he confronts the issues involved in medical travel head-on, concluding:

Keep an eye on the growing trend of medical tourism. I predict it will become more prominent in coming years.

This, in response to a writer who said he was “appalled” that a friend was going to India for heart surgery.

Weil says:

Your friend seems to have latched on to “medical tourism,” a growing trend in the United States for individuals who can’t afford medical treatment here, or who want better quality care than they can get domestically. Increasingly, it is also being used by employers, who see this as a less expensive way to insure their workers’ health. The destinations of choice are India, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia where the costs of surgery are only a fraction of what they are in the United States. Reportedly, the best of the hospitals in such areas that have been attracting patients from the U.S. and around the world are staffed with surgeons trained in this country, Great Britain and other countries in which medical care is much more expensive.

The full column is here.