February 7, 2012

The A-B Tech Social Science department will present a free program on Medical Tourism at 2 p.m. Feb. 21 in Ferguson 121 on the College’s Asheville campus.

A-B Tech Instructor April Birchfield will give the presentation. “Medical tourism, combining the elements of a vacation with medical treatment, is not a new popular culture craze,” she said. “The practice has been around since the ancient Sumerian period, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Western North Carolina was a center of the industry.”

The presentation will discuss the development of medical tourism in Asheville and the surrounding area with regards to the geothermal and mineral springs, tuberculosis sanatoria, and hay fever hotels.