【文章预读】

IN THE tiny Croatian town of Zabok patients arrive in their thousands each year from across Europe and the Middle East, seeking replacement hips or knees at the St Catherine hospital, which specialises in orthopaedic work. Some come for treatment they cannot get at home, others to escape long waiting-lists for public health care or high prices for private operations. Croatia is one of a number of treatment hotspots in the medical-tourism industry. Babies are made in Barbados, sexes are changed in Bangkok, teeth are replaced in Hungary or Mexico and hair is transplanted in Turkey.
Precise numbers are hard to pin down, partly because of differences between countries in what is counted as medical tourism. Some national statistics include a mere spa visit or a tourist who falls sick. Allied Market Research, a research firm, puts the industry’s value at $61bn in 2016. Keith Pollard, head of LaingBuisson, a health-care research outfit that specialises in medical-tourism data, reckons it is much smaller, at around $10bn-15bn.


【文章精讲】

IN THE tiny Croatian town of Zabokpatients arrive in their thousands each year from across Europe and the Middle East, seeking replacement hips or knees at the St Catherine hospital, which specialises in orthopaedic work. Some come for treatment they cannot get at home, others to escape long waiting-lists for public health care or high prices for private operations. Croatia is one of a number of treatment hotspots in the medical-tourism industry. Babies are made in Barbados, sexes are changed in Bangkok, teeth are replaced in Hungary or Mexico and hair is transplanted in Turkey.

in their hundreds/thousands/millions

- People come out on the streets in their thousands.
replacement n.替换
hip n.屁股
orthopaedic adj. 整形外科的
- an orthopedic surgeon
waiting-list n.侯等名单
hotspot n.热点
medical-tourism 医疗旅游
transplant v.移植

Precise numbers are hard to pin down, partly because of differences between countries in what is counted as medical tourism. Some national statistics include a mere spa visit or a tourist who falls sick. Allied Market Research, a research firm, puts the industry’s value at $61bn in 2016. Keith Pollard, head of LaingBuisson, a health-care research outfit that specialises in medical-tourism data, reckons it is much smaller, at around $10bn-15bn.

precise adj.精确的
pin down 确定 (to find out with certainty)
- I’m trying to pin the source of the problem down.
reckon v. 认为，考虑


【推荐句式表达】

1.…in their thousands
2.… is hard to pin down
3.fall sick