Easily the highlight of a tough 5 years at medical school is the medical elective – your chance to travel abroad and experience medicine in a different culture of your own choosing.
About 2 months ago I secured my 6 week placement at Rarotonga Hospital, an 80 bed hospital located in Rarotonga, the largest of 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.
When I say Rarotonga is the largest of the islands I don’t want to mislead you in to thinking it is a ‘large’ island…. the circumference of the whole island is only 32km (almost 20 miles). The island is encircled by a single road that connects all of the villages together, apparently taking just 45 minutes to drive all the way around. The centre of the island is quite mountainous, owing to it’s volcanic history, and as a result is largely unpopulated, but does provide spectacular opportunities for hiking (added bonus of no snakes or poisonous insects!).
I suppose I had better explain why I have chosen to do my elective on an island of paradise. I promise you that the decision was not based purely on the photos of white sandy beaches and clear turquoise sea….
Honest!
My elective ‘must be’ list:
- English speaking – Learning other languages has never been my strong point. Therefore the country I chose had to be predominately english speaking to allow me to get the most out of my time spent there.
- Safe – A pretty sensible criterion really! Especially as I will be travelling on my own.
- A once in a lifetime learning experience – I’m not just saying this incase any of the medical school lecturers happen to read this, but I do really want to experience medicine in a different culture. Right from day 1 as a baby medical student I have always wanted to be a GP and this has only been further reinforced during my time spent in clinical environments. It seemed pointless to me to spend my elective shadowing a specialist doctor in a large hospital when I know that this is not the career path that I want to take. Rarotonga hospital is the only hospital on the island (I think there may also be a couple of clinics scattered over the island) and so i’m hoping I will get to see a range of different medical complaints and have a real hands-on experience.
The Cook Islands fulfils all 3, with the added bonus of being a tropical paradise – I couldn’t really ask for anything more!
So, as of last weekend my elective is officially official! I received the go-ahead from the medical school and armed with that, I booked my flights. I will be making the 25 hour journey (21.5 hours flying time and a bit of hanging around in LA airport in between) on Sunday 5th April 2015. My parents have booked to come out and visit me during my last week and so we will all head back to England together on Saturday 16th May, with a few days stop-over in Los Angeles before arriving home.
Roll on April 2015!!!
Leicester Medic Abroad 
Hello,
I’m currently going into my last 10months of medical school at Warwick and I was wondering if I could pick your brains about your elective?
I’ve already arranged with Rarotonga hospital to go there and started sorting my accommodation but I was just wondering about funding, how did you fund your elective?
Thank you!!!
Hannah
Hiya!
You have made a fab decision! I had the best time ever in the Cook Islands.
With regards to funding I was really fortunate that my parents could help out a lot with the cost but I also asked for money for Christmas and my birthday running up to my elective to help cover my spending money whilst I was there. At the time of booking my elective I did have a look at sponsorship options but as far as I could see these were only really available if you were going to a third world country or going to work or do research in a specialist field which didn’t really apply to the Cook Islands.
Thank you for getting back to me!
I’m really excited already. I emailed the hostel you stayed at but they’ve not got back to me, are they a little slow? Might send another email.
Can I be extremely cheeky and ask if you have a ball park figure as to how much your entire elective cost?
Thank you again!