ABSTRACT
Cross-border treatments are most pronounced in broadly two categories: medical tourism and outreach/teaching. Medical Tourism is defined as the process in which a patient travels outside his or her usual residence for the purpose of medical or surgical treatment. The more common conditions for this type of travel for treatment are plastic/cosmetic surgery and transplant surgery. The wide adoption of Roman Laws in the European continent up to the Middle Ages led to the development of this concept in English Common Law and, subsequently, in the 1800s, greatly influenced the development of medical law and compensation in the American legal system. The risks inherent to patients who are receiving outreach or care in teaching programmes are essentially similar to those who travel for medical tourism. The modern interconnected world has witnessed the advent of cross-border surgical treatments seen in two main forms: medical tourism and outreach/teaching care.
