{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "josef-woodman",
 "type": "person",
 "names": {
  "name": "Josef Woodman",
  "aliases": [
   "Josef Woodman, Patients Beyond Borders"
  ],
  "said": "Styled in his own publisher's releases as CEO of Patients Beyond Borders — a consumer guidebook that is also a business selling services to the hospitals it covers."
 },
 "region": [
  "north-america",
  "global"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "role": "journalist",
  "iso2": "US"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "Author of \"Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Tourism\", the consumer guidebook that introduced most English-speaking readers to this subject. Open Library records the first edition on 12 March 2007, published by Healthy Travel Media. A press release from that publisher on 21 January 2020 announcing the fourth edition describes him as \"CEO of Patients Beyond Borders\", covering \"800 medical centers and clinics in 70 countries\".",
  "story": "The guidebook did something no register did: it listed hospitals abroad by procedure, with prices and with what to ask, for a reader with no clinical training. For fifteen years it was the most widely read single object in this field, and the vocabulary it used — package, facilitator, accreditation — is the vocabulary the trade still uses with patients.\n\nThe same 2020 release also shows the field's characteristic arithmetic in its natural habitat. It states that \"the international medical travel market is expanding at 15-18% annually\" and that \"more than two million US patients will cross borders for medical care\" that year. Neither figure carries a method, a denominator or a source in the release, and this site does not repeat either as a fact.\n\n*Inference —* a guidebook with an audience is also a business, and whose money it takes matters to how it should be read. This record does not have first-party access to how that business worked at its height: patientsbeyondborders.com's own about and services pages are gone from the live site, and the archived copies could not be retrieved from this machine.\n\nWhat can be read today is the ending. As of 17 September 2026 patientsbeyondborders.com carries no author name and no book, and directs the reader elsewhere: \"If you are a patient seeking assistance with medical travel, please visit Medical Departures, or contact info@medicaldepartures.com.\" The most-read consumer guide in this trade now forwards its readers to a booking platform.",
  "notes": "No birth year is published in any source read for this record, and none is asserted."
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "facilitator",
   "as": "The trade his guidebook taught a generation of readers to use, and to check.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "package-price",
   "as": "The unit his book listed hospitals in.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "choosing-a-facilitator",
   "as": "The step of the journey his guide was written for.",
   "rel": "pathway"
  },
  {
   "to": "medical-tourism",
   "as": "The word in his title, and the fight over it.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "counting-patients",
   "as": "Where the two-million figure in his publisher's release is taken apart.",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "leigh-turner",
   "as": "The academic reading of the same industry, from outside it.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Open Library — Patients Beyond Borders",
   "url": "https://openlibrary.org/works/OL9228481W"
  },
  {
   "label": "Healthy Travel Media announces fourth edition (21 January 2020)",
   "url": "https://www.newswise.com/articles/healthy-travel-media-announces-fourth-edition-of-patients-beyond-borders"
  },
  {
   "label": "patientsbeyondborders.com",
   "url": "https://www.patientsbeyondborders.com/"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:openlibrary-pbb",
  "s:newswise-pbb-2020",
  "s:pbb-homepage-2026"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:newswise-pbb-2020"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:newswise-pbb-2020",
    "note": "the quoted market claims are from the publisher's own release; the third paragraph is marked inference; the closing quotation was read on the live site on 2026-09-17"
   }
  }
 },
 "needs_verification": true,
 "confidence": "medium",
 "updated": "2026-09-17",
 "blurb": "Author of \"Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Tourism\", the consumer guidebook that introduced most English-speaking readers to this subject.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "north-america",
   "name": "North America",
   "note": "the United States and Canada — the two biggest source markets in the world"
  },
  {
   "key": "global",
   "name": "Everywhere",
   "note": "use for a node that belongs to no one country — a standard, a word, a risk"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "facilitator",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "Facilitator",
   "as": "The trade his guidebook taught a generation of readers to use, and to check.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "package-price",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "Package price",
   "as": "The unit his book listed hospitals in.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "choosing-a-facilitator",
   "type": "pathway",
   "name": "Choosing a facilitator",
   "as": "The step of the journey his guide was written for.",
   "rel": "pathway"
  },
  {
   "to": "medical-tourism",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "Medical tourism",
   "as": "The word in his title, and the fight over it.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "counting-patients",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "Counting patients",
   "as": "Where the two-million figure in his publisher's release is taken apart.",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "leigh-turner",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Leigh Turner",
   "as": "The academic reading of the same industry, from outside it.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:openlibrary-pbb",
   "kind": "catalogue",
   "title": "Patients Beyond Borders — Josef Woodman, Healthy Travel Media",
   "publisher": "Open Library",
   "url": "https://openlibrary.org/works/OL9228481W",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "first publication year 2007; the author record /authors/OL3288597A carries thirteen works"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:newswise-pbb-2020",
   "kind": "article",
   "title": "Healthy Travel Media announces fourth edition of Patients Beyond Borders",
   "publisher": "Newswise (press release from Healthy Travel Media), 21 January 2020",
   "url": "https://www.newswise.com/articles/healthy-travel-media-announces-fourth-edition-of-patients-beyond-borders",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "describes Josef Woodman as 'CEO of Patients Beyond Borders'; names Healthy Travel Media as publisher and Calvander Communications as parent; the fourth edition covers '800 medical centers and clinics in 70 countries'; carries the claims that the market is 'expanding at 15-18% annually' and that 'more than two million US patients will cross borders for medical care' in 2020, neither with a method"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:pbb-homepage-2026",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "patientsbeyondborders.com homepage",
   "publisher": "Patients Beyond Borders",
   "url": "https://www.patientsbeyondborders.com/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "as read on this date the site names no author and no book and states: 'If you are a patient seeking assistance with medical travel, please visit Medical Departures, or contact info@medicaldepartures.com.' The /about and /services paths return 404"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:newswise-pbb-2020"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:newswise-pbb-2020",
   "note": "the quoted market claims are from the publisher's own release; the third paragraph is marked inference; the closing quotation was read on the live site on 2026-09-17"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "monterrey",
   "type": "hub",
   "name": "Monterrey",
   "as": "Wrote the only city edition of his guidebook devoted to a Latin American hub, and it was this one.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "from": "keith-pollard",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Keith Pollard",
   "as": "The other figure who built a business explaining this trade to patients, from the consumer-guide side rather than the trade-press one.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "from": "leigh-turner",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Leigh Turner",
   "as": "The consumer-guide reading of the same industry, from inside it.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  }
 ]
}