If you have a sore throat, you go to your primary care physician. If you need a yellow fever vaccine before your business trip or your semester abroad, where do you go? Most physicians aren’t trained in travel medicine. Hardly any of them has ever seen a case of yellow fever, rabies, typhoid, bacterial meningitis or Japanese encephalitis. Travelers don’t want to see a case of these diseases on their trips either. Fortunately, there are safe and effective vaccines that can prevent every one of these serious diseases. Who should administer them? Travel medicine physicians are your answer. These doctors have special training and expertise in travel vaccinations and travel safety. They immunize travelers going to destinations throughout the world. Make sure you see one of them several weeks before departure.
Sure, the CDC website is a great general resource for travel vaccination recommendations, but it doesn’t customize the advice to the traveler’s specific itinerary. In other words, international travelers may not need all of the vaccinations that the CDC advises. Travel physicians can cut through all of this so you get the vaccinations that make sense for you.
- Choose a physician trained in travel medicine.
- Verify that the physician is a certified yellow fever vaccine provider.
- Visit us for links to trained travel doctors in your community and for a wealth of travel safety advice.
Travel vaccines prevent serious diseases abroad. Travel medicine physicians can ‘call the shots’ for you. Make sure an appointment with one of them is on your itinerary.
Last week, we were at the AAFP (American Academy of Family Practice) medical convention in Boston. Usually, we doctors are attending the medical lectures at these conferences to keep current on medical knowledge. This time, however, we were manning a booth in the exhibit hall in a sea of pharmaceutical and medical device booths, who were hawking their products to thousands of physicians. Physicians flocked to our booth, even though we were not giving away free pens, T-shirts, restaurant coupons or hot buttered popcorn. Our organization, Travel Clinics of America, attracted physicians because of our concept. We didn’t need a free giveaway.
Just yesterday, two nurses approached me and asked if my kids would be getting the H1N1 vaccine. These ladies are medical professionals. Both worked many years as intensive care unit nurses. They believed in and practiced modern medicine. Why did they have hesitancy about the vaccine for their kids?
I remember as a young child in grade school, swallowing the sugary oral polio vaccine. Since then, the only times I’ve thought about polio were in preparation for exams in medical school. As a doctor, I’ve never seen a case of it. Since I don’t treat kids, I’ve never prescribed the polio vaccine. It’s simply not part of my medical universe.![file000132701536[1] file000132701536[1]](http://travelvaccineforum.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/file0001327015361.jpg?w=300&h=225)
One sure fire way to have adventure on your trip abroad is to catch a case of
The only country in the world that requires that international travelers receive the bacterial meningitis vaccine is Saudi Arabia. This is to protect the Saudi public, not the individual traveler. International travelers to many other foreign destinations also need the ![800px-_mirror_edit_jj[1] 800px-_mirror_edit_jj[1]](http://travelvaccineforum.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/800px-_mirror_edit_jj1.jpg?w=300&h=211)