by JESSICA PAULINE OGILVIE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER ,  Jewish Journal | 2010-05-28

For many people, the idea of traveling to Israel invokes images of sacred synagogues, trips to the Western Wall and moments of personal religious reflection.

For others, it calls to mind hospital beds, surgeries and doctors.

Medical tourism — in which patients travel to other countries for medical procedures — has,  in some form, been around \"for centuries,\" said Jonathan Edelheit, CEO of the Medical Tourism Association, an organization that helps promote international medical travel.

But over the past five years, advances in technology and medicine combined with growing health care costs in the United States have caused interest in the practice to skyrocket, with no signs of slowing down.