Peace Villages Foundation


Medicine & Healthcare - 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 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. 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.

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:

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.

Requirements:

The key requirements for a medical volunteer are initiative, enthusiasm, and readiness to work in unfamiliar circumstances, also if you speak basic Spanish the experience will be more useful. This placement is particularly suited to medical students in their first to fourth years, and for electives.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.
Minimum Requirements:
Level of Experience:  Little
Spanish Language Skills:  Basic
Minimum Time Commitment:  3 weeks

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



 

 

Fundación Aldeas de Paz
Lomas de Piedra Canaima via Sampai, Santa Elena de Uairén,
La Gran Sabana, Estado Bolívar, Venezuela
Phone: 0058 - 289 - 4160820  Email: mail@peacevillages.org
We are a registered charity: RIF J-30872287-1 (Vz) 
   

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Peace Villages Foundation
 
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