How to find a good travel clinic
How is a traveller to determine which travel clinic to visit? Word of mouth can be a useful guide. Google ratings can be helpful although sometimes it seems the office staff is being judged. Family physicians can be a worthwhile source of referral since they will have had some feedback from their patients through the years.
There are objective indicators. A knowledgeable travel clinic will usually be a member of the International Society of Travel Medicine. ISTM provides travel medicine providers with a wealth of information and resources and holds a well-attended biennial conference. Membership implies that the travel clinic is "plugged in". Travel medicine is not a specialty with a residency program such as orthopedics and ophthalmology have. However practitioners (doctors, nurses and pharmacists) can earn the Certificate of Travel Health (CTH) from the ISTM. Obtaining this certificate requires writing and passing a comprehensive examination that has a high failure rate. A practitioner who has the CTH is likely to be knowledgeable about travel medicine and competent if combined with enough practical experience in a travel clinic. Currently of the entire medical staff at our Riverside and Barrhaven travel clinics, four of us hold the Certificate of Travel Health while two have yet to take the examination.
A "softer" sign of a better clinic might be the number of vaccines recommended for a given itinerary. Knowledgeable practitioners seem to recommend fewer vaccines. Why would this be? Well-informed clinics are less inclined to take a "just in case" attitude. Knowing the risks of typhoid fever, Japanese encephalitis and other diseases in diverse parts of the world allows for more discriminating vaccine suggestions. This affects total cost to the traveller as well.
How is a traveller to determine which travel clinic to visit? Word of mouth can be a useful guide. Google ratings can be helpful although sometimes it seems the office staff is being judged. Family physicians can be a worthwhile source of referral since they will have had some feedback from their patients through the years.
There are objective indicators. A knowledgeable travel clinic will usually be a member of the International Society of Travel Medicine. ISTM provides travel medicine providers with a wealth of information and resources and holds a well-attended biennial conference. Membership implies that the travel clinic is "plugged in". Travel medicine is not a specialty with a residency program such as orthopedics and ophthalmology have. However practitioners (doctors, nurses and pharmacists) can earn the Certificate of Travel Health (CTH) from the ISTM. Obtaining this certificate requires writing and passing a comprehensive examination that has a high failure rate. A practitioner who has the CTH is likely to be knowledgeable about travel medicine and competent if combined with enough practical experience in a travel clinic. Currently of the entire medical staff at our Riverside and Barrhaven travel clinics, four of us hold the Certificate of Travel Health while two have yet to take the examination.
A "softer" sign of a better clinic might be the number of vaccines recommended for a given itinerary. Knowledgeable practitioners seem to recommend fewer vaccines. Why would this be? Well-informed clinics are less inclined to take a "just in case" attitude. Knowing the risks of typhoid fever, Japanese encephalitis and other diseases in diverse parts of the world allows for more discriminating vaccine suggestions. This affects total cost to the traveller as well.