Seattle based The Icon Group has added to its domestic U.S. board certified physicians and surgeons recruiting business, to include sending them to medical tourism countries.  This new business activity is branded “Escape from America.” Philip Slaton of Icon suggests that many doctors are, for various reasons, dissatisfied with the U.S. healthcare system. From his experience in producing business-to-consumer medical tourism exhibitions in the United States, he believes that medical tourism hospitals and hospital development companies can reduce their doctor shortfall by recruiting American doctors. This in turn will help them attract greater numbers of American medical  touristswho feel more comfortable with U.S. board certified doctors from America. He suggests that despite many hospital claims to having US trained doctors, the reality is that American born and trained doctors are not currently working in large numbers in the international medical tourism industry.

Slaton suggests they could bring their own American patients with them. So far the two models or options that have emerged for the deployment of these doctors in medical tourism destinations are:
• Starting their own parallel practice in a foreign country and bringing in their U.S. patients for surgical procedures, as well as developing new medical tourism patients.
• Joining a practice, clinic or hospital and bringing their own patients, as well as developing new medical tourism patients.