My name is K. Eckland, and I am an acute care nurse practitioner in cardiothoracic surgery. After working with patients from all backgrounds and watching the American health care system continue to deteriorate and fail many of my neediest patients – I became interested in surgical tourism.
Several of my patients asked me about medical tourism, and were relying heavily on industry supported websites to find surgeons and medical providers. This made me exceedingly nervous about their health and well-being since none of these websites were independently reviewed, operated or unbiased, and there is very little regulation of medical tourism companies. It sounded like a recipe for disaster to me - but I also understood why my patients were interested.
As a healthcare provider, my job is to give unbiased and honest information to my patients - even if it means they might chose to go to other providers and make decisions that other doctors and nurses may not like.
I just needed a way to find out who the excellent providers were, (and who wasn't so great) so that my patients would have the necessary information to make informed decisions.
*(If you have any questions about me – please visit my website, Bogota Surgery.org. I believe in transparency, and have posted my credentials on the site.)
So, I began traveling, interviewing and observing surgeries as a way to try and make sure that my patients would have legitimate and unbiased information about surgical tourism options. I use internationally accepted criteria and scientific tools to evaluate providers, procedures and facilities. I invested my own money (my retirement) into this project, and accept no outside funding from doctors, hospitals, companies so that readers could be assured of my impartiality. I don’t work for the doctors, I work for my readers.
I feel that as a nurse, my job is to advocate for my patients – and while I wish everyone could stay close to home for their medical needs, that’s just not the reality for many people. Instead – I want to help people find safe options.
I limit myself to surgical tourism and surgeons for a couple of reasons – the main reason being that I have extensive surgical experience and know the international standards and protocols used for surgery and surgical patients. I also believe that its not always practical to encourage people to seek medical tourism for chronic diseases/ conditions that require frequent follow-ups.
I never set out to become the 'great American writer' but Bogota! a hidden gem guide to surgical tourism is my third book in the medical tourism/ medical genre. For this book, I spent almost six months in Bogota, Colombia talking, interviewing, investigating as many people as possible. It’s hard work - a lot of 16 hour days for a product I really believe in - and most people don’t think they need. Not everyone should buy my book – but if you or a loved one is considering traveling for surgery, please buy my book before choosing a provider off the Internet.
I strive to create a high quality product but it's sometimes difficult with all the changes needed for different formats. If you aren't pleased with your e-book, let me know, for future revisions.
