ArticleCanadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie2016
Financial costs and patients' perceptions of medical tourism in bariatric surgery.
Article in Canadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Decision-making about bariatric and cosmetic medical tourism from countries with universal healthcare: a rapid systematic review.Globalization and health · 2026Pooled it
- Getting more than what you pay for? Managing complications of bariatric tourism at an academic center near the US-Mexico border.Surgical endoscopy · 2025Article
- Development of consensus-derived quality indicators for laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy operative reports.Surgical endoscopy · 2022Article
- Extensively Drug-Resistant Carbapenemase-Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Medical Tourism from the United States to Mexico, 2018-2019.Emerging infectious diseases · 2022Review
- Missing something? A scoping review of venous thromboembolic events and their associations with bariatric surgery. Refining the evidence base.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2020Article
- Exploring isolation, self-directed care and extensive follow-up: factors heightening the health and safety risks of bariatric surgery abroad among Canadian medical tourists.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2019Article
- "I didn't have to prove to anybody that I was a good candidate": a case study framing international bariatric tourism by Canadians as circumvention tourism.BMC health services research · 2018Article
- Medical tourism and national health care systems: an institutionalist research agenda.Globalization and health · 2018Article
- Bariatric surgery tourism hidden costs? How Canada is not doing its part in covering bariatric surgery under theCanadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie · 2017Article
- Unpacking the financial costs of "bariatric tourism" gone wrong: Who holds responsibility for costs to the Canadian health care system?Canadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie · 2016Article
- Effectiveness of case based cultural competency among nurses working in private hospitals of Bangkok, Thailand: A Quasi-experimental study.Pakistan journal of medical sciencesArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
summaryMany Canadians pursue surgical treatment for severe obesity outside of their province or country - so-called "medical tourism." We have managed many complications related to this evolving phenomenon. The costs associated with this care seem substantial but have not been previously quantified. We surveyed Alberta general surgeons and postoperative medical tourists to estimate costs of treating complications related to medical tourism in bariatric surgery and to understand patients' motivations for pursuing medical tourism. Our analysis suggests more than $560 000 was spent treating 59 bariatric medical tourists by 25 surgeons between 2012 and 2013. Responses from medical tourists suggest that they believe their surgeries were successful despite some having postoperative complications and lacking support from medical or surgical teams. We believe that the financial cost of treating complications related to medical tourism in Alberta is substantial and impacts existing limited resources.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.