Top 10 (Inpatients)
Top 10 (outpatients)
Safari
The majority of our students use public transport to get into town or to travel to their placement. In fact joining the hoards on a busy bus can sometimes be the best way to integrate yourself into local life. Trips to work can also provide some of the funniest travel experiences of your time away. We asked our students “ what is the public transport like in your area” in the hope we might hear about some of these funny and typical travel experiences. We had some fantastic responses from each of our destinations, with real insight into each country.
Starting in Africa;
We get hundreds of students coming to us knowing they want to do a clinical placement overseas, but with no idea exactly where they would like to go. If this sounds familiar then maybe our current students will help you decide…..
Prasanga the caterer and the gardener Uncle
Katie and Clare in Sri Lanka have a list too long to post but here are some of our favourites; (more…)
Hanging out
We set the Assistant/Programme Managers on a mission this week to find out ‘’…What games are popular in the house and what are the rules …’’
We often get students asking what participants do during their free time, especially in the evenings. Most agree that it is a pretty relaxed affair which is definitely required after a hard day’s work in a foreign environment, time is spent journal writing, exploring the local area, chillaxing as well as going back to basics and playing a good old game. Surprisingly, a lot of the games played are traditional local games learnt in country as well as things brought from home. Feel free to have a read of the following blog about what games students are playing whilst on placement, you may even learn a few new ones to help pass some time during the upcoming cold winter evenings
Natalia our programme manager in Argentina says ‘’ during the cold winter evenings, two games became popular among students and staff at the BBQ nights. The first one was “Chancho” (Pig), which is a variation of the famous card game “Spoons”. The objective of the game is for each player to be the first to have four of a kind. When this happens, the player says “chancho” loud, and places one hand on the centre of the table. This has to be followed by the rest of the players; the last one loses and gets a letter. The game ends when the word “chancho” is spelled out by a player and, officially becomes one. In some cases, the player who loses is required to complete a dare.
I worked in the Emergency Department of a a non profit International Non-Governmental Organisation teaching hospital. It was an imposing building overlooking the city of Pokhara and looks expensive (i.e beyond reach for many of the locals). The reality of the fact is that it isn’t, but not many people know that. As a result between the hours of 08:00 and 15:00 – when the regional ‘cheap’ hospitals are open – the teaching hospital ED is remarkably quiet.
In ED we saw the many similar conditions to those we see in the UK. However there was an awful lot more trauma (resulting from RTCs and falls from trees!) and an alarming number of cases of meningitis.
In Nepal, if you injure someone resulting in a disability that stops them working, you have to support them for the rest of their life. There are horror stories of people reversing to kill people that they have run over. I heard stories that it is cheaper to bribe the police when there is a dead body!
For the last few years there has been plenty of chat about Everest base camp and the amount of litter that people leave each year. We’ve heard about highways being built to cope with the number of tourists and we’ve seen lots of footage of overly burdened gurkas carrying sack loads of tin cans back from the well trampled route. The Saving Mount Everest Clean-Up Expedition team bring over 8 tonnes of rubbish from Mount Everest and its trekking trails!
Rubbish removed by Saving Mount Everest
People and rubbish = a big problem.
Have you been thinking about doing your elective with Work the World in Asia, but can’t quite decide whether to chose Nepal or Sri Lanka? I completely understand your dilemma – both countries offer so much, but are so different from each other. It’s difficult to imagine what to expect or what to base your decision on.
To help you with your choice, I wanted to give you a little overview of the hospitals, the houses and what makes these destinations particularly special!
Clinical opportunities
A ward in Nepal
In Nepal we are based in Pokhara and we’ve partnered with a couple of large hospitals from both public and private sectors. The government hospital generally offers an excellent insight into basic healthcare provision for Nepal’s working class population. It’s a good option for students with an interest in primary healthcare and general fields of medicine and nursing and has proved particularly positive for general surgery, emergency and obstetrics and gynaecology.
I served my elective nursing placement through Work the World in Pokhara, Nepal for 6 weeks. Given the fact that Nepal has a GDP of $1,200 per capita in comparison to $35,100 per capita in the UK, the budget for healthcare in the former is significantly smaller than the UK’s, resulting in a considerably different methodology of healthcare delivery. During that period I worked in the Emergency Department and Surgical Department of the Western Regional Hospital and worked in the health post at Nalma Village in Lamjung. While the following advice was developed from my Nepali experiences, they can be adapted towards nursing in the developing world.
Understand the local culture
Often students tell us of rare and tropical diseases that they’ve only read about in the past. Whether it be differences in the treatment of patients, unseen diseases or progressed pathologies, an overseas placement can provide a fascinating learning environment. We have asked this question a few times but we always get some really interesting answers… What has been your clinical highlight this week?
On the ward in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka after three weeks on the surgical ward Julie’s really built up the trust between herself and her local colleagues “I’m treated as a team member. I had my own patients for wound care management and contributed to a burns victim dressing. This was a new approach, which had a good effect on the staff and patient as dressing time became less dramatic.”
We think that one of the hardest parts of organising an elective is actually deciding where to go. Whether you’re tempted by the tribes of Africa; the mountains of Asia or the flavour of South America, wherever you decide to go, your elective overseas will no doubt enrich both your professional and personal development in a safe, supported environment.
We currently work in seven locations around the world and like to talk to students in depth about each destination before they make a decision – this way they can work out which placement is most suited to them. So the question we chose to ask the houses this week is “Why did you choose to do your placement in the destination you’re in?”
A Sri Lankan beach