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Medical Advice For Travelers

The links below will help answer questions you may have for medical topics concerning traveling. This information will hopefully give you information to aid you in preparing for your trip.

A Flight with Sore Eyes: Vision Care for Travelers
...Finding high quality eye protection in certain countries can be difficult so bring your own, particularly if you require it for your job. Carry an extra pair of prescription glasses, packed in your carry on luggage if possible--and bring a copy of your latest eyeglass prescription (a contact lens prescription won't suffice)....

Avoiding Travelers' Diarrhea
Global travel can be extremely enjoyable, but it also creates some health risks for the traveler, including most commonly Travelers' Diarrhea, or TD for short....

Current SARS Situation
Currently, there is no known SARS transmission anywhere in the world. The most recent human cases of SARS-CoV infection were reported in China in April 2004 in an outbreak resulting from laboratory-acquired infections (see Laboratory Biosafety for more details)....

Common Colds
Catching a cold is certainly not the worst health problem a traveler can experience but it's one of the most common and can throw a monkey-wrench into a carefully planned business trip....
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First Aid Kits for Travelers
If you travel internationally (or if you travel in the US and like to be well prepared), I would seriously consider packing some first-aid items or even an entire kit. Pharmacies generally aren't as convenient overseas as they are in the U.S. (for example, 24 hour pharmacies are much harder to find) and medications you're accustomed to using may go by different names or may not be available at all.

Mountain Sickness
Modern travel has made it easy to reach high altitude destinations such as the Peruvian Andes, Lhasa (Tibet), or even the ski resorts of Colorado, without doing any actual mountain climbing. If you're planning such a trip, be sure to familiarize yourself with the health effects of altitude....

Preventing and Treating Travelers' Diarrhea
Avoiding Travelers' Diarrhea is difficult. A study published in the mid-1980's found that among 600 travelers who kept complete dietary journals during travel to developing countries, 98% violated the rules for safe eating at least once within the first three days of their trip! Whether they're in New York or New Guinea, most travelers find it difficult not to eat something that looks appetizing -- especially when they're hungry...

Preventing Malaria
Malaria remains one of the most important and devastating infectious diseases in the world, and travelers to areas with malaria need to be prepared. Malaria is spread by the bite of a mosquito and avoiding insect bites is a vital part of avoiding the disease. Unfortunately mosquito bites may be unavoidable on certain trips. In this case, travelers must take medications to avoid malaria....

Preventing Motion Sickness
Motion Sickness is remarkably common and while some people are more susceptible than others, there's probably no one who is immune if the motion stimulus is strong enough and unfamiliar enough. While modern cruise ships are designed with stabilizer systems to minimize the movements that stimulate Motion Sickness, in certain types of weather there's no ship design that can prevent seasickness....

US and British Medical Degrees Explained
International travelers, particularly Americans, are sometimes surprised to learn that many physicians around the world don't have an "M.D." degree...

When Ears Have an Altitude Problem
The human body didn't evolve to accommodate air travel at 33,000 feet. So, it's not surprising that high altitude flying can cause a variety of physical symptoms, despite the high quality pressurization systems available on modern aircraft. In-flight ear pain is certainly one of the most common problems fliers report. Steep takeoffs and landings, used more frequently now in an effort to reduce airport noise, exacerbate the problem, as do springtime allergies....

Travel Advice for Everyone