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A medical student’s elective is considered one of the best parts of medical school and will be something you talk about for years! It gives you the opportunity to go to almost any destination in the world to experience healthcare in a different place. Saying this – it's important to remember you can also do your elective in the UK.
It can be daunting when it comes to actually planning an elective, so we’ve put together some essential information and a list of useful places to start!

​Financing an Elective

​Top tips for being awarded funding:

​Before you start planning your elective, you need to work out what your budget is – this will help determine where you can go! There are a number of ways to get additional funding for your elective. The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund have created a list of organisations that might be able to help (see button below).

Bursaries and Grants

• ​Apply to as many places as possible – there is no limit and even a small amount will help
• Apply early – this gives you more time to apply to more places but some organisations only award bursaries once or twice per year!

• If you don’t ask, you don’t get! - If you are unsure if an organisation will help fund your elective – ask!

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​Planning an Elective

​Things to think about when planning:

​Once you’ve worked out your budget, you’ll have a good idea of where you can go. The next step is applying! Remember to apply to more than one place initially, and try not to make any financial commitments until you’re more certain it is where you want to go and that the medical school will approve it. However, the world is your oyster!
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• ​Have a look at the current Foreign & Commonwealth Office guidance to check the recommended travel guidelines for your chosen country.

​Medical School Partnerships

​The only formal international partnerships Leicester Medical School have at the moment is with three Japanese Medical Schools:

• Chiba University
• Nagoya University
• Niigata University

Two students are normally able to attend each university each year. These places are often competitive and all applications will be dealt with by the medical school directly.
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Our ​Elective Stories

Mini - Barbados and America

'Elective is a long-awaited culmination and celebration of the 5 years of blood, sweat and tears that medical students are all too familiar with. It’s a great opportunity to travel, see the world and have a taste of working life. I certainly look back on my time very fondly.

My elective was split in to two parts, with the first two weeks in Barbados, and 4 weeks in America. To organise my placement in Barbados I contacted one of the main teaching hospitals on the island- Queen Elizabeth Hospital and filled out an application and enquired about what specialties were available to undertake a placement in. The structure of placement was less rigid and formal than what we are used to in the UK, and the teaching style was very different. For elective students there was a lot of flexibility with the timetable and free time, and the hospital are also able to advise on accommodation and transport to the hospital. There is obviously a lot of opportunity to go to the beach, engage in watersports and socialize, so I would recommend going with a group, no matter how small, to guarantee a lot of fun!

​My experience in America was different as I arranged it through a family friend. I was able to undertake a placement in Paediatrics, shadowing a Paeditrician mostly in the outpatient setting. The clinic and hospital he worked at did not usually organize or offer elective programmes but this made for dedicated, one-on-one shadowing and teaching. If you are able to organize placements with a contact, be frank with them about the balance of work and free time you would like to have so they can tailor your placement specifically and you have the flexibility to travel or engage in other activities if you want to.'

'I knew I wanted to visit Australia and also gain more experience in the acute clinical setting. Canberra Hospital fit this description perfectly with a Level 1 Trauma Centre equipped with a dedicated Trauma team. I organised the placement myself but did use elective websites to initially narrow my search down.

During my time I was able to assist in trauma calls and follow interesting cases that I'd only heard about in medical school from admission to discharge. I was also able to participate in the national trauma prevention programme for young adults.

​With Sydney only being a 3 hour coach ride away, I spent a week there with some friends I'd made at the hospital and we all had an amazing time!'

Jonny - Australia

Jvalant - India

'I went to the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) in Kerala, India. I picked this place because it had a large surgical department with a lot of operations going on and the chance to get involved with any kind of research too. I had contacts in India but had found the hospital and seen through the British Plastic Surgery Association students who had been there before and had good reviews on it. I emailed the hospital’s admin team and electives team and had to send through some paperwork (all quite trivial and a formality but getting it done early was important). The other point was that I applied for an elective bursary through BAPRAS which made the elective financially very viable.

I was lucky enough to do as much or as little as I wanted. I recognised that I was going to struggle in clinics a bit with the language barrier but the doctors would translate for me when I did attend clinics. I was also going to theatres every day and initially was observing (very closely) in many intricate head and neck reconstructive surgeries. As time went on I was scrubbing in more and more and assisting in the operations and helping with suturing. It was an immersive experience that I really enjoyed. I also got to attend a national meeting on reconstructive surgery and produce an information leaflet for patients.

Outside the hospital the city was brilliant with lots to do, the biggest shopping mall in Asia, lots of tourist sites within a couple hours drive and I was able to get three day weekends to get to visit them. This gave me a good balance of working during the week and having time afterwards to explore new areas.
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I got to do more of what I wanted to explore as a career, I was thoroughly involved in the hospital and got to see a new place I had been meaning to. The team there were very supportive and showed me the value of taking my training abroad at some point in my career in the future'

'My elective at Great Ormond Street was an incredible opportunity. While a UK based elective may not have been my first choice (the pandemic had its own plans of course), GOSH was an amazing substitute and one I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in Paediatrics.

The application process was quite straight forward. I just had to email them, and they sent across a form for me to fill in and send along with my CV. It took a while to get it all sorted (mostly due to Covid) but finally they confirmed I would be able to spend 6 weeks on the PICU.

As I spent time on the PICU it became clear very quickly how super specialised the entire hospital was. They were treating diseases even the registrars hadn’t heard of, affecting maybe one in a million children. I was able to do daily reviews, assist with intubations etc, go down to surgery and much more. I also got to spend some time on NICU and the Cardiac ICU, again seeing very specialised care with such interesting cases. One example was a post-op 14 year old girl with a cardiac tumour which had been resected. This had never really been seen before in the UK and they were liaising with Boston Children’s Hospital in America.

I also spent a few days with their Children’s Acute Transport Service (CATS), which was such a unique experience. I rode in an ambulance as we transferred children requiring very intensive care across hospitals, learning the true difficulties of moving patients requiring such a high level of support.

The 6 weeks were truly eye-opening. I met incredible doctors from all over the world, learnt not only a lot of medicine but a lot about other healthcare systems and law and ethics surrounding care of palliative paediatric patients. If you’re interested in paediatrics, or even just in the weird and wonderful world of rare medicine, this would be the elective for you'

Prerna - Great Ormond Street, UK

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LUSUMA Alumni, Intercalation and Electives Officer- Christine Loft
[email protected]

​Vacant is your go-to person if you have any questions and queries about electives.  
If you want to get in contact with her please email [email protected]

To find out more about Christine, click below:

More about Christine