This paper focuses on the diversity in patients' experience of bio-medicine and contrasts it with the normative view characteristic of health professionals. Ethnographic fieldwork among Polish migrant women in London, Barcelona and Berlin included interviews about their experiences with local healthcare and health professionals. Themes drawn from the narratives are differences between the cities in terms of communication between patients and health professionals, respect for patients' choices and dignity, attitudes to pregnancy and birth (different levels of medicalization), and paediatric care. It is argued that patients continuously negotiate among their own views and expectations based on previous experiences and knowledge from personal communication; internet forums and publications; and the offer of medical services in the countries of their settlement. Patients experience pluralism of therapeutic traditions within and outside bio-medicine. In turn, representatives of bio-medicine are rarely aware of other medical practices and beliefs and this leads to various misunderstandings. By highlighting the pluralism of medical practices in European countries and the increasing mobility of patients, this case study has useful implications for medical anthropologists and health professionals in a broader Western context, such as raising sensitivity to different communication strategies and a diversity of curing traditions and expectations.

Abstract:The article discusses the medical travel (medical tourism) of Polish women migrants based on a study conducted between 2008 and 2011 on Polish women who migrated to London, Barcelona, and Berlin. The author argues that the principal reasons for medical travel to Poland are the lower costs of private treatment, the relatively easy access to specialised health care, and personal comfort derived from linguistic and cultural competency. The women in the study who travelled to Poland for medical treatment combined the economic resources acquired while living abroad with their knowledge of the cultural and medical system in Poland to choose the best options for them. The treatments they sought included gynaecological, dental, and other specialised treatments, for which they turned to the private health sector in Poland. Some of the women also sought treatment in other countries. The women in the study highlighted the advantages of medical travel and mobility while also refl ected on the dilemmas they faced in choosing the best care. The author argues that medical travel poses a challenge to the national borders of health-care systems and the national availability of medical procedures, and found that while such mobility generates inequalities it also leads to greater agency and creativeness on the part of patients when they challenge the given regulations, authority, and expert knowledge in one country.

This article analyses migration narratives of a small group of Polish female “repeat migrants” currently residing in Barcelona. Before settling there they lived in at least three other countries. I argue that repeat migrants experience many challenges: learning multiple languages, integrating into multiple labour markets, building multiple social networks, and adapting to cultural contexts. I asked whether these challenges have resulted in increased integration in the host societies or integration into international expatriate communities. The main findings are that the two main subgroups were 1) women who adapted well to life in Barcelona because of their Catalan partners and 2) women with international partners who tended to live in clusters of internationals. Polish immigrant women in my fieldwork perceived themselves as outsiders unless they quickly learned Spanish and Catalan. I also argue that the availability of different kinds of Urry's mobilities might influence and facilitate decisions on becoming more mobile.

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