ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how and why people seek medical care, treatments and cures across borders, between countries and health systems, and we examine the various implications of this medical travel. The global quest for treatments has been referred to by anthropologists and other social researchers variously as medial tourism, medical travel, and transnational and cross-border care depending on motivation and context. Medical travel is an assemblage of medical technologies, staff, global air travel, Internet marketing, international accreditation and health insurance. Medical travel also has implications for national health systems. Medication use is a socially embedded practices, and saving, sharing, and re-using medicines is broadly practiced. Structural vulnerability is a useful concept for thinking through this situation. Some 2.3 million mixed-status families live in the US, consisting of variable constellations of citizens, permanent legal residents, undocumented immigrants, and individuals in legal limbo such as recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
