New York Times: Have Surgery. Go Sightseeing.
April 26, 2007

By Paul B. Brown
New York Times
March 24, 2007

WOULD you be willing to have nonurgent medical procedures done overseas, if you could recover in a fine hotel and your employer not only picked up all the costs, but actually paid you for having the work done outside the United States?

You may be faced with that decision, if HR Magazine is right in its prediction that “medical tourism” will become one of the benefits corporations will be offering soon.

Medical tourism, or medical travel as it is also called, involves traveling to “respected medical facilities” in countries like India, Thailand or Singapore to have non-life-threatening medical procedures done, Betty Liddick writes. “It also often involves recuperation at a resort, or tourist destination, all for less than what treatment alone would cost in the United States.”

The price is obviously the appeal to employers. According to examples cited in the article “Going the Distance for Health Savings,” the cost of sending a worker overseas for procedures like removing a gallbladder can be at least 50 percent less than that of having the work done in the United States, even if the employer pays for the worker to spend recovery time in a fine hotel.

To encourage employees to go overseas, some companies are willing to give employees a percentage of what is saved in medical costs.

The crucial question about medical tourism, which Ms. Liddick describes as a “small but growing health care trend,” is, of course, whether the quality of care is equal to what could be received at home.

“No one knows the answer to that,” said one expert quoted in the article. “Frankly, we’re not in a position to meaningfully evaluate and compare American hospitals, let alone offshore ones.”

STRESS BUSTERS Feeling overwhelmed and overworked? A “stress expert,” Kathleen Hall, offers tips in Body & Soul to change things for the better:

-Start small. Instead of making wholesale changes to reduce stress, “alter one small thing: a morning habit, a food choice,” she says. “Over time these will add up.”

-Be thankful. “It’s hard to feel gratitude and stress at the same time. Devote five minutes a day to giving thanks for all the gifts in your life.”

-Be here now. Instead of multitasking, deal with one thing at a time.

-Walk softly. Under stress, we tend to hit the floor hard as we stride, Ms. Hall writes. “Imagine you’re walking on a lotus flower — tenderly, gently. Unplug through your feet.”

-“Love your commute. Use your travel time as an opportunity to practice patience and compassion. If you can use calming breaths to stay related and unruffled in traffic, you can handle anything.”

ENERGY VAMPIRES There isn’t much you can do about an overly demanding boss, or clients who move up the deadline unexpectedly.

But it is possible to remove “energy vampires,” people who “suck the life out of our goals, dreams and plans for success,” Jon Gordon writes in Motto, “if we let them.”

The trick is not to let them. The easiest way to do that, of course, is simply to avoid these people in the first place.

If that is impossible, Mr. Gordon says, do not take personally their comments, like “you can’t do that; you should do this instead.” And understand that the problem lies with them and not with you.

“They are limited by their own vision, doubt and fears,” Mr. Gordon writes. “They think that dreams were meant for others but not for people like you and me.”

FINAL TAKE “So what if we’re not getting enough shut-eye these days,” Reader’s Digest says, “at least we’re dressing like we’ll be ready if the opportunity arises.”

Sleepwear, which includes modified pajamas, modest lingerie and even some kinds of sweat clothes, is now an extremely hot apparel segment, with sales climbing 16 percent in the year that ended last September, according to research by the NPD Group.

You do have to wonder, though, if shopping for items like American Eagle’s dormwear collection is keeping people from getting enough sleep.

PAUL B. BROWN