Medical tourism, global medical care, international health and wellness, and personal choices in healthcare options are all terms that have become more prevalent in everyday speech of inhabitants from around the world. The growing popularity of global wellness and availability of medical care and services has prompted millions of individuals to travel beyond borders for their health care needs.

Medical tourism conferences are scheduled throughout 2010 to deal with medical tourism issues such as quality of service, patient care, disease treatments and protocols in multiple health fields including weight loss and obesity, cosmetic surgical procedures, orthopedics, cardiac care, chronic illness and disease processes, and stem cell research.

Medical conferences from the United States to Mumbai, India to Switzerland and Slovenia are expected to generate healthcare administrators, doctors, surgeons, pharmaceutical representatives and health insurance agents and representatives from around the globe.

For example, GLOW, the Asia Medical Tourism and Wellness Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in May 2010 focuses on the shift from consumer health markets for healthy balances between work and life trends and techniques regarding health and wellness, new approaches for the wellness industry and strategies for hospitals and medical providers to reach and market services around the globe.

The First Annual Medical Tourism Research Conference is scheduled to be held in San Antonio, Texas in January 2010, while the first Tourism-Contact-Culture Research Network Conference will be held in Lisbon, Portugal in September. 

The concept of traveling beyond borders for medical care has reached an all time high and is expected to continue to grow in the coming decade, increasing the need for health care providers to come together for the common good of all.