Volunteer Medicine Projects, gain work-experience overseas in a foreign hospital or clinic

Volunteer Medical Placements Overseas with Projects Abroad

Volunteering overseas on a medicine project is an ideal way to gain work experience whilst helping some of the neediest people and poorest resourced medical institutions in the third world. Whether you are looking to get on to a university course, a trained professional, or somewhere in-between, you will have a role to play in one of the many hospitals, clinics and centres that we work with. Each placement is tailored, where possible, both to a volunteer's level of experience and their interests.

Volunteering Abroad on a Medicine placement

As a medicine volunteer, you are sure to see the huge gulf between the standards of medical practice in the developed and developing worlds. Hospitals are often very poorly resourced, medical staff underpaid, and the combined lack of experience and funds to pay for routine medical treatment means the patients you see will often have advanced illnesses and conditions that you will rarely see in the developed world.

Pre-University Volunteers - You will be involved in the day-to-day running of hospitals and clinics, observing or directly assisting doctors and nurses. You might find yourself, for example, watching a caesarean in the operating theatre, or working with a doctor on his rounds in a big city hospital. You can help out in simple but practical ways, vastly increasing your own knowledge and understanding of medical practice.

Elective Students - If you are planning to do an elective please go to our Medical Elective Placements page.

Previous Medicine Volunteer's Experience on an Overseas Placement

"The medical programme was extremely beneficial and really gave me an insight into the Indian medical system. It has definitely reconfirmed my wish to become a doctor. I saw several operations that I wouldn't have seen until my fourth or fifth year at medical school, had I not taken a gap year."
Olivia Wolff, Medical volunteer in India.

Traditional Medicine

In India, China and Sri Lanka, there are unrivalled opportunities for those who are interested in the practice of traditional medicine. Many communities in developing countries rely mainly on treatments taken directly from medicinal plants, where facilities are sparse. In this day and age, some experience of cures and preventions that have been used for thousands of years, using locally available natural products, is valuable for those of us who live in the drug-dependent west. You can opt to combine traditional and western practices during your placement, thereby creating an all-round medical experience. We can also arrange for you to spend some time in an Acupuncture clinic in Mongolia.

A Doctor's view

"Having undergraduate medical students working alongside me is a real help. I run the woman's clinic alone, and am often rushed off my feet - to have someone that I know can administer injections, take blood pressure, process urine samples and assist with births makes an enormous difference to both myself and the patients."
Dr H Ibrahim