So, I’ve mentioned a couple of times over the past few months that I am going on an international elective placement, but I haven’t actually said yet where I’m going or what it is I’m going to be doing – I guess I wanted to share it on here properly rather than just mention it in passing as I’m really excited about it all!
When I was 18 years old I went on a gap year trip along the east coast of Africa and it’s something I will truly never forget – I just had such an amazing experience, seeing this new part of the world and experiencing such a different culture. When I started looking at Midwifery courses, one of the things that really appealed to me was the courses that had the option of an international placement – I just knew that if the opportunity was there, I’d love to go back to that part of the world and see how Midwifery works out there with such limited resources and the cultural differences that exist.
Excitingly, my uni course has this option – you don’t have to do it internationally, but you have 3 weeks at the end of your second year where you can go and work elsewhere as a student midwife; whether this is another hospital in the UK or a unit abroad – and when it came to organising what I was doing, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
I searched around the various companies which offer these international placements and the absolute front-runner in my eyes was a company called Work The World. They offer placements all around the world, including Tanzania in Africa.
I had a good read through all the information online and the more I read the more I just knew I had to book it – so (coincidentally) a year ago last week, I picked my dates and paid my deposit – eek!
I fly out on Saturday August 18th and arrive on Sunday 19th early afternoon and then I’m out there for two weeks, working in a busy maternity hospital (and when I say busy, I mean, REALLY busy – they have 10 labour beds and deliver 50 babies a day!)
I’m staying in a house run by Work The World so I’ll be with other medical people doing similar placements to me (not all maternity but all medical) and one of my close friends from the course is also out there for one of the weeks too! Apparently the house set up is just fab – 400 yds from the beach and it has it’s own pool, so you can guarantee that any time I’m not in the hospital I will be wandering down to the beach, swimming in the sea or reading a book by the pool – so exciting!
We also get the opportunity to do a safari for a few days while we are out there which I’ve obviously booked to do – can’t turn down an opportunity like that!
I’ll be sharing the whole experience on here, with my normal weekly posts and the inevitable couple of extras as I go along because I know there is going to be so much I want to share! I’ll also be posting on instagram (stories and normal posts) so make sure you are following on there too to keep up to date with it all!
I’ll try to share a bit of what I’ve packed in a post too for anyone who is thinking of doing something similar!
Can’t wait to get out there now and so excited to share this experience with you all – it’s gonna be a really unique experience and I know that there will be difficult times too, but I just can’t wait to get out there and get stuck in! Hope you guys enjoy hearing about it!
To read last week’s Midwife Mondays post, click here:
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