Old and new stereotypes of Muslims and Middle Easterners interfere with our ability to understand the plights of patients who must seek medical care outside their countries. In popular and academic representations of medical travelers, Middle Eastern patients are often reduced to the moneyed sheiks of the 1970s oil embargo, the terrorists of the September 11 attacks, or those needing “halal” diets within healthcare’s concern for cultural competency. These portrayals fail to uncover the individual concerns and experiences of patients pursuing medical care abroad. The proposed paper uncovers these stereotypes within various academic and popular sources. For example, the paper highlights the simplicity within discussions of transplantation where the issue of organ procurement is summarized as wealthy patients from the Gulf buying the organs of poor individuals forced to sell them. The paper illustrates the intrigue that fictitious leaders of Middle Eastern countries (and perhaps of terrorist networks) create when they visit as patients U.S. hospital dramas. It critiques the characterization in the medical tourism press and websites of Middle Eastern patients as high-spending customers who bring along their family members and dietary requirements, creating both opportunities and challenges in the capturing of this market. The paper contrasts these cursory representations with the rich findings of in-depth anthropological research on medical travelers from Middle Eastern countries. I feature my own two-year ethnographic study of Yemeni medical travelers in Jordan and India as a case study of what can be learned beyond the stereotypes. Anthropological studies reveal the diverse motivations, hopes, and fears of patients and their family members unable to access the care they need in their home countries. By recording insider perspectives and experiences, these studies generate compassion and understanding rather than reinforce simplifications and generalizations.