The term ‘medical tourism’ is usually used to refer to people who, for reasons of availability or cost, travel outside Australia for medical procedures.

In general, medical tourism is something we GPs would not necessarily recommend or support, mostly because of risk.

I remember a patient I encountered in the ED of a hospital where I was working as a surgical registrar —many, many years ago — who had come back from having breast augmentation in Thailand with a nasty postoperative infection.

Ultimately, this required removal of the implants and a prolonged course of antibiotics, leaving the patient pretty much back where she started, albeit with a lower bank balance.