UKC

Hi all,

I am looking for some advice. I have my medical elective coming up 16thmarch to 24th April and I am looking for a good placement outside of the UK.

I have an interest in emergency medicine, trauma and orthopaedics and prehospital care.

I would like to get the most out of my placement from a medical point of view but it would be great to go somewhere where I can get some good climbing done or generally get out into the great outdoors! I realise this will be one of the last opportunities I will have to travel to a country for an extended period of time so I want to make the most out of it!

Ideally I need an English speaking destination so not to limit the medical experience I can gain so this already limits a lot of destinations. I mostly sport climb and boulder and am partial to some DWS. I am a ski instructor but I think it will be near impossible to find a placement that is English speaking and has some snow, but open to suggestions!

Do any of you have any recommendations of hospitals or destinations to look into? Or even better any contacts or personal experiences to share?

Many thanks for any advice you can offer

Chris

In reply to climbin_chris:

Hi Christ, I'm a fellow 4th year medical student, I'm currentley half way through my elective.

I know it's not abroad, but I've literally (yesterday!!) just finished a 4 week elective placement at the ED in Bangor, North Wales. I had an amazing time, and it's a fab location for climbing! I went out pretty much every day and just worked in the evenings, a benefit to working I. A department that operates 24hrs a day!
There was plenty of opportunities to get involved in things like Mountain rescue training days-I spent a day playing casualty for them! I also went to a pre hospital training day for the air ambulance,and there were loads of other things to do as well.

I was in the same position as you trying to find a placement outside of the UK like the one I have just done, in the end, I decided to stay as I couldn't find anything to match, I'm very glad that I did.

Have a look-http://www.mountainmedicine.co.uk/Mountain_Medicine_Bangor/Welcome.html

I start another 4 week placement on Monday with the Herts and Essex air ambulance, which will satisfy my prehospital experience desires

Wrt skiing, I was going to go to NZ but they no longer take students, probs the wrong time of year for you though.

If you want any other advice or have any questions, send me a message and I'll gladly help.

In reply to Bee_1:

Bee_1 Thank you for your reply. I really appreciate it. It sounds like you are having a fantastic experience! I will drop you a message with a few questions.

Thank you

Chris

In reply to climbin_chris:

South Africa is a place many people go to. The US is also good, if you can get hands on experience. Try contacting Karim Brohi who is on twitter, or I'm sure you can find his email, and who set up the trauma.org website, which if you're interested in trauma, I'm sure you already use? Are you on, or can you access as a medical student, the trauma.org email community? If you don't have any luck PM me.. ..my dad set up the London trauma focus at the Royal London including the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service, so I'll ask him for some advice for you.

In reply to contrariousjim:

Thanks contrariousjim. I appreciated it. I will drop you a PM

In reply to climbin_chris:

How about Sydney or Melbourne? Plenty of big teaching hospitals with rock climbing reasonably close (eg Blue Mountains for Sydney has heaps of climbing plus cascading). Plus, everyone speaks English (and without a funny accent)!

From a hospital perspective you'd definitely find one that covers your areas of interest.

In reply to SonyaM:

Hi Sonya,


Thank you for your message. Australia would be incredible. One of the problems I have found is that the bigger hospitals often charge students to be placed there and as it is already far away I was trying to avoid having to pay further costs. I don't suppose you have any contacts for people working in any of the hospitals in or around Sydney or Melbourne?

ATB

Chris

In reply to climbin_chris:

Since when did NZ stop taking elective students? News to me (and presumably my elective student!)

PM me and I can send you details of who to contact here. There is a lot of pressure on places though - we had 2000 applicants last year for Otago/Southland alone (a population of about 350,000).

Can probably help especially if Southland a possibility - mulitipitch granite close by (well for NZ standards) and a couple of hours by car to Queenstown.

Also try over on doctors.net (but be similarly clear about your requirements over there, rather than the usual 'can someone sort me out an elective' type requests that get people understandably pissed off with!).

Cheers

b

In reply to ben b:

Thanks Ben I will drop you a PM

In reply to ben b:

My niece came back from an elective in NZ a month or so ago, although I don't know where she was except that it was on North Island. So still possible.

In reply to climbin_chris:

Hi Chris,
I'm an FY1 at the moment so did my elective about 18 months ago. A few of us went to Vancouver and whilst I did paeds surgery, my boyfriend Dom did orthopaedics at Vancouver general hospital and paeds orthopaedics at British Columbia Children's hospital.

I would totally recommend Vancouver/BC! We were there August-October so not there for snow but went up to Whistler for hiking and it was amazing

They generally work pretty long hours but its an amazing experience of on-call/lots of theatre time. Weekends are pretty much free and loads nearby. Lots of climbing e.g. in Squamish which unfortunately I didn't manage to get to. Also other outdoors things like sea kayaking/biking which is all easy to organise.

Just ask if you want any more info. All electives are arranged through Uni of British Columbia and you can apply for anything really - St Pauls hospital is best for emergency medicine.

Sarah-Louise

In reply to pocketsarah:

Thanks Sarah-Louise.

I have sent you a PM.


Chris

In reply to ben b:

Pretty sure NZ are still taking elective students. It was the skiing places that I applied to all said no to taking elective students when I applied 18 months ago, may have changed since then though