Why Medical Tourism is Gaining Popularity

Why Medical Tourism is Gaining Popularity
I remember the first time I read about a new term that was
introduced into our lexicon here in the US recently, called
"medical tourism". I didn't even know there was such a
trend occurring, although as I read further about this
increasingly popular pursuit, it made perfect sense. You
see, here in the US we are facing, and have been facing for
several years now, somewhat of a healthcare crisis.

There are scores more US citizens that are not insured than
are insured at any given time, and that translates into a
lot of people who are paying exorbitant doctors visit,
surgery and treatment fees when they need medical
attention, and an even bigger number of people who simply
don't seek medical attention when they need it because they
know they can't afford it.

Even if you have insurance, the cost of the premiums is
going up higher every year, and even the co-pays are
reaching higher numbers than ever seen.

Today, it is more of a rarety to have "a great insurance
plan" than it was just ten years ago. Add into that, the
fact that here in the US, our physicians, specialists,
plastic surgeons, dentists, psychiatrists, and every other
licensed and practicing medical professional are exposed to
lawsuits that threaten to bankrupt them for malpractice.
Add to that their skyrocketing malpractice insurance
premiums, and you've got a full fledged medical crisis on
your hands.

This is exactly the reason why more and more US citizens
are travelling to get cheaper medical care. Many times,
even after the costs of travel, these citizens are savings
boatloads of money on their medical treatments and
surgeries in other countries with equally well trained
doctors, but a much lower cost.

The medical tourism industry is just now starting to catch
on, and shows signs that it will become a boon for foreign
travel, and may even be a solicited "main attraction" in
many far away destinations, in order to get eager US
citizens to their country, spending money to get medical
and elective care that they otherwise may not be able to
afford here in the US.

It ends up being a great win/win that way, but it still
doesn't take away from the disturbing fact that the US is
experiencing the worst healthcare system crisis in its
history.

The largest industries for medical tourism at the moment
seem to be for the fields of plastic surgery and dentistry.
Many of the South American countries can offer much
cheaper prices for tourists who are coming over to get
procedures that would cost thousands of dollars here in the
US, and to boot, they would be getting the same caliber of
care.

Heck, they even say that some of the best plastic surgeons
in the world practice in Brazil and Costa Rica, where
plastic surgery is a booming business, doctors there are
highly trained and skilled due to experience, and the cost
is often times slashed in half or even better, after US
money exchange rates and the cheaper rate are added in.

Colombia and the Phillipines are both notorious also for
extremely cheap plastic surgery, dentistry, and other types
of health care procedures, and are trying to edge into the
industry to attract more visitors to their countries, which
in turn helps out local economies and opens up a lot of
further tourism development. US citizens aren't the only
ones taking advantage of travelling to get cheaper health
care and surgeries.

Citizens in Britain are also getting in on the action so
they can get access to cheaper dental work, laser eye
surgery, and even bariatric surgery. The business of
cosmetic surgery probably gets the most publicity when it
comes to medical tourism, but there are a lot of other
fields in which one can get medically related services for
a fraction of the cost in these countries that most people
don't know about - yet.

Travelling for medical and surgical care, whether it's
considered elective or not can result in a dramatic price
reduction, you just have to do the research and see if,
added with the costs associated with travelling, it will
actually save you money in your particular case or not.

Of course it's not always going to add up to a dramatic
savings when it's all said and done, so make sure you
thoroughly research and consider all other potential costs
of travelling before you make a final decision.

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Danna Schneider has written articles and reviews on her
experiences with beauty products and procedures, and also
contributes to lip plumper reviews at
http://www.mybeautyspace.com/lip-plump-reviews/ and
http://www.cosmeticsgalore.com/wrinkle-cream-reviews.html ,
where you can find reviews on natural products that are
noninvasive for lip plumping as well as more on anti aging,
wrinkle control and reversal.

Brain Fitness Case Study: Kris Kringle

Brain Fitness Case Study: Kris Kringle
How BrainFit is the man in the big red suit? Does old St.
Nick adhere to the four cornerstones of brain fitness to
take good care of his egg's noggin? All in all he seems to
do a fairly good job, but let's take a closer look.

First off is Nutrition. I'd guess that the diet up in the
north pole has to be similar to the Eskimos. Even though
they eat a lot of fat from whale blubber, they get huge
doses of omega-3s from all the fish. I've heard that Santa
enjoys a lot of ice fishing during his downtime. So even
though he goes on a once a year milk and cookies binge (or
bourbon and cookies in some places), he probably does
fairly well the rest of the year.

Second is Physical Activity. Cleaning out reindeer stalls
and chasing elves around to make sure they get their jobs
done must be physically exerting. Plus, just maintaining a
huge workshop operation has to have a fair amount of
physical activity on a day-to-day basis. So I'd have to
give Santa a good score on the physical activity
cornerstone as well.

Third is Mental Activity. This is where Santa really
shines. Remembering all the kids' names and associating all
the different requests with everyone one of them is quite a
feat and indicative of a strong memory. Not only that, but
his sense of direction to remember where they all live
shows incredible spatial abilities. Finally, some of the
toy designs he comes up with these days are very creative.
I have to give him top marks on this cornerstone.

Fourth is Sleep, Rest and Relaxation. Santa probably
doesn't do quite as well here. Even though he only pulls an
all-nighter once a year, he strikes me as a type-A
personality and is on the go all the time. I bet he's up to
the wee hours working hard most of the year. In fact, lack
of sleep has a known correlation with obesity and I'll bet
this contributes to his portly mid-section.

Overall, however, Santa does fairly well in three out of
the four cornerstones so let's see how that translates into
his EPIC performance (Emotional, Physical and Intellectual
Cognition).

Emotionally, he seems to be in good shape. He's always
laughing (HO, HO, HO) and shows a lot of patience with all
those kids constantly climbing on him. I've never heard
anyone call Santa a jerk, so you have to figure that he
does a good job managing his stress levels.

Physically, he could lose a little weight but still seems
to function very well. It must be tough getting up and down
all those chimneys but he gets it done. I don't know how
his blood pressure or immune function are doing but he's
probably OK.

Intellectually, he's a star. As I discussed above, memory,
creativity and problem solving skills are all sharp.
Although he did seem to forget about that Lava Lamp that I
requested for about 10 years in a row, but he finally came
through.

So is Santa doing what is necessary to stay BrainFit? I'd
have to say yes.

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Learn to control stress, improve your metabolism and boost
your intelligence with the four cornerstones of Brain
Fitness. Visit http://www.BrainFitForLife.com for FREE
Brain Fitness resources.

Busy professionals don't waste time on the treadmill

Busy professionals don't waste time on the treadmill
OK, so you don't have the time to train...

I understand, everything else just seems to get in your
way. Your work, your home life, your social life. The thing
that often gets missed is your physical fitness training
and training specifically for your sport.

Why is it that the one thing that can make such a
difference to your OVERALL well being gets cut out... It
seems that it is always the after thought.

Time is a very precious commodity, once it has gone it
cannot be reclaimed, got back or reversed! As a busy
professional, you are by definition "busy".

You are busy with work commitments, busy doing "busy stuff"
that takes up huge proportions of your time, you have a
busy social life associated to your work life, networking
is key to your career progression and professional standing.

This problem affects corporate athletes of all levels. If
you are an aspiring Olympic athlete, but NEED a career as
well working to supplement your sport. Or, you are a
weekend golfer, rugby or soccer player who happens to be a
Director, VP or CEO of a multinational company, the
restrictions on your time are the same.

If only you had more time to train, your game could be that
little bit better, taking you to club, regional or national
championship level! The ultimate cost of this show-stopper
is lost opportunities to fully enjoy your sport. It will
leave you with too many "if-only" and "what-if" questions
later in life.

Also the opportunity for social and professional networking
is lost too. This means missed business or promotion
opportunities, because you don't play golf, or the rest of
the management team play for the local soccer or rugby team
and you don't.

However, your perception of how much time a training
program actually takes may be slightly off the mark... and
it really does not need to eat into your work commitments,
social commitments, or your home life.

Gone are the days of ineffective, slow, bring cardio
workouts requiring you to spend hours on the treadmill, or
pounding the pavement early each morning, or late every
night. Studies have shown that this is largely pointless
for the majority of sports, and in many cases detrimental
to your overall physical health.

Such training can very quickly cause repetitive strain
injuries, structural health problems, specifically ankle,
knee and hip joint problems as well as being an influencing
factor in back pain.

What's more, this style of training has been shown to be as
much as 9 times LESS effective for fat burning than other
methods that take a fraction of the time!

Workouts can be much more focussed, getting you further
towards your health and fitness goals can be done in a
fraction of the time, leaving "Time" to be a POOR excuse
rather than a legitimate reason for not training.

So what kind of training am I talking about, what can you
do in a short time that will be effective for your sporting
as well as health related goals?

OK, lets put it this way, if you are on the gym floor for
more than 45 minutes, you are probably wasting an awful lot
of time chatting, or doing exercises that really don't
achieve an awful lot.

Exercise routines that focus on more "bang for your buck"
movements and intensities.

For example, stay away from the machines, they "isolate"
individual muscles and can cause muscular imbalances and
have little reflection on how you use your body during your
game.

Don't waste your time on doing a million reps of abdominal
crunches, bicep curls, tricep extensions or calf raises.
They do very little for you in the overall scheme of your
training, and are a massive waste of time where the muscles
can be utilised during other exercises anyway.

The exercises to focus on working the large muscle groups,
use movement patterns that reflect your sport and work to
massively boost your metabolism. We are talking Squats,
Lunges, Deadlifts, rows, and push ups...

Learning to do each of these fundamental exercises will
massively reduce your time in the gym, give you a really
effective workout for fat burning and improving your
sporting ability.

A keen water skier who is also works as a legal consult in
a very busy bank here in Luxembourg, discovered that
getting her workouts done in under 40 minutes meant that
she never entertained the fact of missing a workout, the
time issue never became an issue. Even after a few short
months with this renewed focus on exercises that really
made the difference, she had lost weight, dropped a
clothing size and saw massive gains in her skiing
performance too.

So you can see that there really is no need to waste time
doing all your long slow cardio workouts. The biggest
question for you now, is with time no longer a valid
excuse, you really cannot miss your workouts anymore!

Go to the Gym tomorrow and try out the basic moves, if you
don't know how to do them, there are plenty of explanations
all over the internet, or you can contact an experienced
personal trainer to help you.

Take action today and don't waste another minute of your
time!

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Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional specializing in help
the busiest people achieve more with their amateur sporting
interests, and at the same time ridding them of excess body
fat. Visit http://www.corporateathletehandbook.com to get a
free 18 page report "How to lose weight even when you are
really busy" containing a full 4 week program which you can
start today!