What is a medical cruise? There isn’t any formal definition of a “medical cruise,” so we suppose a medical cruise is just a cruise that involves medicine (or health in general) in one way or another. A cruise can be medical in nature in two ways: a cruise can focus on medical education, offering conferences and meetings about medical topics to professionals, or it can center on patient care, providing passengers some form of medical treatment. There are a fair number of each type of cruise, and both kinds will be covered in their own articles. This article will therefore focus only on the basics of both variety of medical cruises without covering any specific cruise options in depth.
When you set out to research medical cruises online, you will likely confront the medical education cruises first, mostly because the cruises that focus on patient treatment are more about so-called “wellness,” making them elusive to search queries that revolve around the word “medical.” So, if you are spurred to investigate medical cruises after this article, know that you have to search for things like “wellness cruises” or “fitness cruises” if you want to find cruises that focus on passenger health. To look into medical conferences or other educational opportunities on cruise ships, search for “medical cruises.”
One of the best sources of information about medical education on board cruise ships is MediCruises.com. Basically, this site lists conferences (and lots of information about them) that doctors and other medical professionals might be interested in attending. There are currently dozens of conferences listed on the website that are being offered over the next 12 to 18 months. You can look at a list of every medical cruise conference available, or you can narrow your search by looking at conferences for different professionals, including doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists. There are far more conferences for doctors and nurses, but every profession has at least a couple of conference listings. The conferences focus on different areas of medicine and are designed for medical practitioners in these areas. These medical cruises operate like standard cruises: they last for several days and visit ports in various exotic lands. Rather than sitting by the pool all day sipping cocktails, however, the passengers attend medical conferences.
Wellness cruises are all about general health, or a component of one’s personal health, and so don’t focus on addressing an illness or injury. (There are, however, some cruises “for” diseases, like cancer, that are designed to raise awareness, money, and so on.) Some cruises focus on specific topics, like weight loss, while others are broader in scope, like Carnival’s Family Fitness Cruise, which is only concerned with the overall health of each member of a family. The on-board experience of a wellness cruise is multifaceted. You might engage in special workout sessions and spa treatments, and you’ll also likely take some classes on exercise, diet, and cooking. Just like the medical conference cruises, wellness cruises are essentially like regular cruises. They last for several days and visit a few locations during the course of the voyage.
If you are a medical professional or are interested in health, you might consider checking out one of the types of medical cruises listed above. They are a perfect way to travel and be productive at the same time, not to mention you get to write off a cruise as a business expense!