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Medicine & Healthcare
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Be involved in the day-to-day running
of a hospital
The Medicine & Healthcare experience and observation program
is tailored, where possible, to a volunteer's level of
relevant experience and interests. Be involved in the
day-to-day
_small.JPG) running of a hospital, observing or directly
assisting doctors and nurses. If you want experience in
health and medicine even without
advanced or special skills, or if you
are a pre-university or elective medical student or a health
professional, these programs need your help.
This program is an invaluable
preparation
Assisting in
this Medicine and Healthcare program is an invaluable
preparation
for a career in medicine and will enable you to
broaden your medical experience in the context of medicine
in a developing country. You will experience the stark
contrast between Western medical practice and the realities
of medicine in developing countries. Sadly, you will also
see medical conditions that have remained untreated and have
developed to an advanced pathological stage uncommon in
developed countries.
There are two hospitals in Santa Elena
There is a general Venezuelan hospital and a second recently
build hospital with Cuban medics and staff. The Venezuelan
hospital covers emergency, pediatric ward, gynecology,
primary attention (after birth giving) and immunology. The
Cuban hospital covers Emergency, general medicine, intensive
care, ophthalmology, physiotherapy, odontology, surgery.
The medical program is available for
elective students, medical students with free holiday time,
pre-university students and also students taking, or
planning to take, specialist medical courses such as
biomedical science, nursing and physiotherapy. The key
requirements in a medical volunteer are initiative,
enthusiasm, and readiness to work in unfamiliar
circumstances - a surgery with minimal equipment or an
understaffed and under resourced hospital. You will find that your
new colleagues and the patients appreciate the fact that you
have come a long way to offer practical help.
Activities can include:
_small.jpg) Volunteers taking part in the medicine and healthcare program will work at the
local hospital in Santa Elena. More than anything they are able to observe and
shadow doctors and nurses at their work. According to their
knowledge, willingness and language skills they will be able to give them a hand, and possibly
take over their own tasks. Volunteers can help with the general caretaking, comfort
little patients, observe and become part of the daily routine of a typical Latin
American hospital. You can assist with duties such as bandaging, taking blood
pressure, and generally caring for the patients.
You might find yourself, for example, watching a caesarean in the operating
theatre or working with a doctor on his rounds. You can help
out
in simple but practical ways, vastly increasing your own knowledge and
understanding of medical practice. You can use the
skills and experience that you have already acquired and will be able to broaden
your medical experience in the context of medicine in a developing country. We
welcome anyone thinking of taking up nursing or midwifery or already training to
be a nurse or a midwife. If you're trained, training or considering training to
be a Midwife, you could work with us. As a physiotherapy student you can
practice and help disabled children and
adults to lead as normal lives as possible. Also working in Rehabilitation is
vitally important and you will learn a great deal in a
completely different cultural setting.
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Requirements:
This placement is particularly suited
to medical students in their first to fourth year, and for electives. The key requirements for a medical
volunteer or intern are initiative, enthusiasm, and readiness to work in unfamiliar
circumstances, a minimum time commitment of 3 weeks and basic Spanish language
skills. Only for a few specialized activities we
require an advanced level of experience, conversational Spanish language skills
and a 2 months minimum time commitment. The hospital requires a doctor’s certificate from you with the following
tests: faeces, urine, uraemia, crestinaemia, complete haematological test,
glucose, HIV, VDRL. This is basically to state that you are healthy, free of
contagious diseases and parasites.
Optional - What you can donate to the hospital:
White bandages
Common
medicine, over-the-counter anti-inflammatory, such as Ibuprofen
Cotton
wool
Hypodermic syringes 20 cc, 10 cc
Hospital scrubs for
surgeons and/ or basic surgical equipment
Green operation cloth
Medical
gloves
Availability:
Ongoing through the whole year
Photos
Cost
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