Thread: how to organize elective rotation in Grenada (for UK student)

Hi

Does anyone know who to contact about arranging an elective in Grenada or other Caribbbean islands?

Thank you!

nope no one knows nore do i think anyone would want to do an elective in the caribbean. their hospitals are a lot worse than any hospital in the us or england or canada.

Try contacting the Ministry of Health, since they are in charge of the General Hospital.

Contact the Ministry of Health and Environment for more details. tel +1 473 440 2649; email min-healthgrenada@caribsurf.com
http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issue.../life/156.html

Actually, there are a few students every term that do electives in both Grenada and St. Vincent. The lack of technology just allows one to hone physical diagnosis skills.

And you'll be hard pressed to see diseases like rheumatic fever and dengue in north america/europe.

and why would you want to see that? if you will never see them again in your practice why would u want to put yourself through living in poor conditions and learning how to use outdated equipment which you will never again use. I personally believe that doing a rotation in a third world country is a waste of time. during rotations, the goal is to learn as much as possible and learning how to use out dated equipment or old technics is a waste of time since you will never use this type of equipment or these technics again. sure you might see some cool stuff but why learn how to diagnose dengue fever when you will never see it again. also why risk getting possibly infected with some illness.

Originally Posted by RussianJoo

and why would you want to see that? if you will never see them again in your practice why would u want to put yourself through living in poor conditions and learning how to use outdated equipment which you will never again use. I personally believe that doing a rotation in a third world country is a waste of time. during rotations, the goal is to learn as much as possible and learning how to use out dated equipment or old technics is a waste of time since you will never use this type of equipment or these technics again. sure you might see some cool stuff but why learn how to diagnose dengue fever when you will never see it again. also why risk getting possibly infected with some illness.

good clinical and diagnostics skills are never outdated and unfortunately in 1st world countries (esp the US) there is an ever-growing reliance on labs and diagnostic test to evaluate patients - at that rate anyone capable of bing trained on the equipment will be able to treat a patient.

while I personally don't want to do a rotation in the caribbean(because I did do the 4 month stint in vinnies), there is value in training in another country- plus what makes you think you WON"T see dengue, or malaria, or cholera, etc, in the US (there were 3 cases of non-travel related malaria in Loudon County, Va last year - IF the physican's there hadn't seen it beofre, they may not have put it on the DDx).

Plus the guy might be from the islands and wants trainig for when he goes back home to work...

By your logic if you plan to adult medicine, then you really shouldn't have to do peds... I mean if you aren't gonna SEE kids, why bother to learn about them!!


Oh, and trust me!!, working in an inner city hospital, you will have plenty of opportunities to get infected with some illness in the good ole US of A!!

Originally Posted by RussianJoo

and why would you want to see that? if you will never see them again in your practice why would u want to put yourself through living in poor conditions and learning how to use outdated equipment which you will never again use. I personally believe that doing a rotation in a third world country is a waste of time. during rotations, the goal is to learn as much as possible and learning how to use out dated equipment or old technics is a waste of time since you will never use this type of equipment or these technics again. sure you might see some cool stuff but why learn how to diagnose dengue fever when you will never see it again. also why risk getting possibly infected with some illness.

Whether i was in US or UK hospitals, i saw the BEST physical diagnosis skills from residents/SHOs who were trained in foreign countries (i.e. India). Rok is totally correct. Tons and tons of times in the US tests and scans are ordered to find a diagnosis, not to confirm one. That is just bad medicine. And that one time when a hurricane/tornado/sunami hits the hospital where you are working and all the expensive machines aren't working and the CT scanner is down, you'll be very glad you did that stint in XYZ developing nation. And when that Caribbean immigrant shows up in your office, dengue will be in your differential while your collegues are looking it up on their palm pilots (if they're lucky to recall hearing about it in medical school).

So why bother to learn these things that you will never see?

1. Never say never.
2. It will make you a more well-rounded physician (i.e. you will have the chance to get the diagnosis before someone else does)
3. Because you love to learn