Medical Tourism

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Dick & I met with Dr. Sharma today at Manipal Hospital. I’ve never had a doctor spend so much time being so personable or explaining everything in such extended and unsolicited detail. Sharma recommends a combination of radiation style treatments; high dose, low dose and brachyatherapy. What was most remarkable to me was our discussion of the use of these gold seeds that get implanted into the prostate to mark where the future low dose radiation will be aimed at. Anyone with a fragment of common sense could see that the markers make sense. Otherwise, the prostate will obviously not be in the same place within the body at any given time. Those parts move around, even if only slightly. So, in traditional radiation treatments in the US, the zapping of the prostrate extends beyond the prostate, to surrounds where the prostate might be at any given time. This yields unnecessary frying of the rectum, with clearly unpleasant side effects. The gold seeds are inserted directly into the prostate, and for maximum accuracy, the doc. leaves them alone to settle for a couple weeks before beginning the low dose radiation. All these extra precautions are apparently not as efficient or cost-effective as the overzapping method described above, and thus the gold seeds are not widely used in the US. Our doctor back home only told us about this form of treatment after we told him we were traveling to India for treatment. Dr. Sharma, who is a frequent lecturer in the US and well acquainted with the issues driving health care decision-making in the US, tells us that this is only one of many examples in which our capitalist based health care model leads to undesirable outcomes and lack of options for patients. He told us the same forces of capitalism are starting to appear more frequently in India; his furrowing eyebrows and shaking head suggests maybe he’s not too happy about that prospect.

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