Within the scope of health tourism; Turkey's potential in the treatment of rare diseases

he increase in the number of patients diagnosed with rare diseases, both in our country and around the world, has made it necessary to pay more attention to these previously ignored diseases due to the difficulties of patients struggling with these diseases and their relatives in the diagnosis and treatment processes. It is known that patients request these services from other countries if rare diseases diagnosis and treatment services are insufficient in their own country. However, the costs they have to bear are often very high due to the limited treatment of rare diseases. The fact that our country has expert health personnel and provides affordable services with advanced health technologies creates a great advantage especially in terms of medical tourism. Despite these advantages for medical tourism activities, the services offered to foreign patients are limited to areas such as eye and dental treatments and aesthetic surgery. In order for our country to get the share it deserves from medical tourism and to increase its competitive power, it needs to turn to a niche market, which is seen as a limited concept, but where there are many patients with rare diseases around the world. In the study, along with the services offered by Turkey and the countries that have come to the fore in health tourism activities in recent years, their policies and other activities for the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases have been obtained through a literature review. In line with the information obtained, the potential of our country in this field was evaluated by making a SWOT analysis. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that it is necessary to encourage studies in the field of genetics by bringing innovations to the curricula of medicine and health education, to encourage physicians to focus on fields such as genetics in the selection of specialties. Sufficient financial support should be provided for clinical studies on rare diseases. Health professionals, agencies and intermediary institutions providing services in health tourism need to increase their awareness of rare diseases.