Travel medicine: an American view of the Australian perspective

Abstract

Peter Leggat has beautifully and succinctly summarized many of the key issues in travel medicine. With humility, he claims only to have presented an Australian perspective. In fact, travel medicine is a growing global domain of medicine. Leggat’s description is appropriately multi-national in perspective, and most of it is true beyond the specific political boundaries surrounding a particular traveler’s place of origin. Travelers with itineraries originating in developing countries might indeed have different risks and needs than the typical American or Australian traveler. Nonetheless, Leggat’s Australian perspective provides a good description of the North American perspective on most major points. Certainly, the need for good pre-travel consultation and intervention is similar between the two continents. Sadly, it is also similar that too many North American travelers do not seek and/or obtain adequate pre-travel input and intervention, and the results of incomplete preventive interventions can be devastating. Leggat’s discussions of immunization and malaria prevention are mostly applicable to American travel clinics as well.