About
Overseas Medical Electives
Dr. Giles Molyneux, together with his team Dr. Julian Proctor, Dr. Jessica Triay, Graham, Pamela and Hugh Proctor, founded the organization Medics Away in 2003 to help nearly qualified 3rd, 4th and 5th year student doctors with the fulfilment of their Medical Electives.
What is a Medical Elective?
A Medical Elective is a period of 1 or 2 months of student placements in a hospital at home or abroad and is intended: to enlighten student doctors to medical practices beyond their training experience; be part of the communities served by the hospital hosting their Elective and to enjoy some of the excitements of foreign travel, after many years of demanding study and examinations. All this is part and parcel of our medical internships and student placements.
The Medics Away Foundation was set up by Dr Giles Molyneux to distribute funds to targeted health care projects in hospitals and communities which host Medics Away medical students during their Medical Electives. Our team’s collective background in world travel, medicine and business provides the backbone of our service.
Since 2003, Medics Away has organized medical electives and medical internships for hundreds of students in locations around the world. Our current destinations include Bali, Belize, India, Peru, Tobago and Thailand. Each year we form relationships with hospitals in new destinations.
Medical students, their families and their universities find our student placements and medical electives very helpful. Therefore we:
- Determine students’ best locations and hospitals to meet their and their universities’ requirements.
- Provide accommodation, and appoint paid, local representatives to cater for student welfare.
- Advise and assist with visas, insurance, vaccinations, flights and transportation.
- Organise travel and expeditions for the students to experience the country and population, apart from their medical activities. We believe that knowledge of the environment and people which their health system serves, is almost as important as experiencing the means of delivery of care.
- The majority of students are very adventurous but most of them have never travelled extensively before and so are somewhat nervous. We provide support in their controlled adventure.
- Because we tend to organise students in groups, to some extent they provide their own support system, homesickness is less of a problem and their parents are reassured.
- From the host hospitals’ point of view, we carry most of the non-medical responsibility and provide a single point of contact to resolve any issues that arise.
- We pay fees per student to host hospitals on medical internships, a significant contribution to popular destinations.
