Mexicali: a mini-gem guide to surgery in Mexicali, Baja California

by K. Eckland, Joanna Calzada Algravez, Carlos Ochoa Gaxiola

Just across the street from the modest city of Calexico lays a modern day Goliath, the million person metropolis of Mexicali, Baja California. This close proximity has attracted medical tourists to this heat baked desert city in droves. In a dramatic change from previous Hidden Gem titles, the authors of Mexicali! bring a more casual look at the good, the bad and the ugly side of Mexicali while maintaining a critical and objective look at the burgeoning medical tourism industry in this border city.K. Eckland, ACNP-BC is a nurse practitioner in cardiothoracic surgery and medical writer specializing in medical tourism. This is her fourth offering in this genre.Dr. Carlos Ochoa, MD is a board certified practicing thoracic surgeon in the city of Mexicali. He provides an insider's look at the life and culture of Mexicali; the city by the fence.Additional Joanna Calzada Algravez, MD - Internal medicine specialist and lifelong Mexicali, MX resident and was instrumental in providing content related to the city of Mexicali.Dr. Cuauhtemoc Robles Cairo, a professor of architecture at the Universidad Autonoma Baja California and expert of the architecture of Mexicali, with several additional books to his credit.Price is set to Amazon.com / Kindle minimum price.

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 15, 2012

About the author

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 independent or unbiased.

(If you have any questions about me – please visit my website, listed above. 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.

This 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.

Biography also posted at independent authors.org