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The Travel Detective

Excess Baggage: Telemedicine While Traveling  

It’s bad enough to get sick when you’re at home, but what about when you’re traveling?

Nothing ruins a vacation quite like feeling miserable and then having to find a doctor or hospital in an unfamiliar place.

Welcome to the world of telemedicine. Faster internet connections and access to smartphones, tablets and computers have made it easy and accessible for travelers to visit a doctor when away from home.

Telemedicine has also been proven to be effective, especially on cruise ships for more than 20 years. For example, a custom telemedicine suite was installed on the Grand Princess nearly two decades ago. It directly linked the ship’s medical staff with emergency physicians as well as specialists in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and enabled them to properly diagnose, stabilize and then treat the patient at sea.

So the next time you’re dealing with a major medical issue while traveling, check to see if telemedicine is an option. You’ll spend less time dealing with doctors and hospitals and more time actually enjoying your trip.

By Peter Greenberg for PeterGreenberg.com