International Travel Clinic: the Latest in Travel Medicine

Abstract: Patients traveling to less developed parts of the world will benefit from an individual assessment at the International Travel Clinic. Expert infectious disease specialists evaluate travelers’ itineraries to provide destination-specific preventive medicine and current health and safety information.
From Clinical Update, Fall 2007
Each year more than 45 million Americans travel abroad. As more and more people travel the world for business and pleasure, an awareness of potential health threats and the measures to prevent them is essential.
An increasing number of these trips are to tropical and less developed countries, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 10 million people will become ill as a result of their travels.
Travel medicine is a specialized area of health care that is becoming more important as worldwide travel continues to increase. The International Travel Clinic, part of the Section on Infectious Diseases at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, is one of the area’s most comprehensive resources on travel-related health issues.
“Travel medicine is an exciting specialty field of medicine that includes aspects of public health, infectious diseases and tropical medicine,” said infectious diseases specialist and Travel Clinic director Christopher A. Ohl, M.D. “Knowledge, a little forethought and planning can make all the difference between an enjoyable, illness-free trip, or an unpleasant experience for those traveling. Health and safety should be a consideration before, during and after your travels.”
Traditionally, travel medicine focuses on people traveling outside the United States, with services centered on provision of vaccinations and prevention of malaria and traveler’s diarrhea. Ohl’s extensive knowledge and expertise in preventive, military and emerging infectious disease medicine brings an additional layer of specialty patient care to the Travel Clinic.
The International Travel Clinic is a highly specialized, up-to-date information source. The Travel Clinic staff evaluates the traveler’s itinerary and planned activities as well as the traveler’s medical conditions to develop an information packet that includes disease risk summaries, prevention information and vaccinations required for entering foreign countries, following recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, Infectious Diseases Society of America, and other professional and technical societies.
“I like to learn from each patient about their upcoming travels abroad to individualize their care,” said Ohl, professor of internal medicine–infectious diseases. “Travel advice to a businessman staying at a four-star hotel in Belize would be different from advice to a backpacker traveling in the tropical, rural mountains of Peru.”
In addition to disease assessments and preventive care, the Travel Clinic provides general information about the traveler’s destination that could affect their visit, such as political unrest, crime rates, weather conditions and emergency medical care and prevention.

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