Please help me to go on a 2 week work experience placement in the Dominican Republic, where I will be working in 4 very different hospital departments, shadowing experienced doctors, and also doing some voluntary community healthcare work.
This will be so valuable to me. My dream is to become a hospital doctor due to so many reasons. I cannot imagine a job where you could learn so much every day,make a difference, have so much variety, solve problems and meet new people. The amount of work experience available in hospitals here is very limited. I have been offered 1 day in total which I am very grateful for and look forward to. Global health really interests me so the chance to experience a health care system will not only be educational but very rewarding and an experience of a lifetime.
The cost of this will be £2,000 which I have to raise myself. The visit is organised by Gap Medics, an organisation that provides overseas medical placements for 16-25 year olds who aspire to be healthcare professionals.
Although a relatively prosperous country, the Dominican Republic has a three-tier medical system, which gives only limited benefit to poorer people; access to medical care is difficult and costly for them, and some hospitals are short of staff and equipment. So the chance for students to take part in voluntary work outside the hospital is particularly valuable; helping our mentors provide basic but much-needed healthcare will allow us to give back something to the community and help make a worthwhile difference – I hope to be particularly useful in this, as I speak Spanish.
I am currently doing my A-Levels at Queen Mary College, Basingstoke and hope to go to medical school in 2018, when I am 18. The knowledge and experience I will get from my time in the Caribbean, and the understanding of a less developed healthcare system, will be an important part of my preparation for application and, in the longer term, will enable me to become a better Doctor.