Work experience & professional placements

Our placements are not only for elective students. If you’re an undergraduate medic, nurse, physio or dentist at any stage of your course, if you have recently qualified, or have even been practising for many years, we have fantastic opportunities for you to gain really valuable work. Our package gives you:

• A guaranteed hospital placement, individually organised by our professional staff in your chosen country
• The security, freedom and social atmosphere of living in a Work the World house
• All your food and other living costs overseas
• Expert advice from our highly experienced UK team before you go
• Support from our overseas staff teams throughout your placement

For pre-elective undergraduates, what you get is essentially an elective experience adapted for students at an earlier stage of training. We will work closely with you to find out as much as possible about your interests and our staff and the named clinical supervisors will arrange a programme according to your experience and clinical preferences. Each student works closely with a named clinical supervisor who is fully briefed.

For professional placements, your skills are likely to be in great demand. Our UK based team will look to see how your abilities can be best utilised to ensure you not only gain the best experience, but crucially how you will be able to really assist the clinics and hospitals overseas.

Choose your clinical specialities

We generally use the same partner hospitals for non-elective placement as we do for electives in order to offer as wide a range of clinical opportunities as possible. Our most popular placements are in paediatrics, obstetrics / gynaecology, A&E and general medicine, but we can also arrange more for specialist fields on request.

As well as the core clinical placements, we offer a range of optional programmes giving a broader insight into the realities of healthcare and everyday life in the developing world. We have one-week village and traditional medicine programmes in Ghana, Zanzibar and Tanzania, as well as a course in the ancient medical science of Ayurvedain India. Please see the ‘Add-ons' links for details.

Total flexibility

Because every person who joins us wants something slightly different from their placement, we think it’s important to organise the experience around you, not try to fit you into a standard package. Tell us when you want to start, finish and any particular things you want to focus on and we'll do the rest. Our knowledgeable UK staff are happy to speak to you any time on the phone or via email, so please get in touch if you have any questions.