Student Spotlight - Elective Stories
Authors: Bradford Anna , Ashraf Daanyaal , Scobie Laura , Hamilton Heather , Kyle Anna 
Published: August 2024

Organising your junior or senior elective is no mean feat. There are plenty of factorsthat come in to play; choosing a medical specialty, deciding whether to stay at home orgo abroad, finances, learning objectives and safety regulations. We have compiled acollection of short elective summaries completed by Glasgow university students insummer 2023. We hope this provides you with some inspiration for organising yourelective in summer 2024. Dr. Craig Napier and Nicola Cumming are extremely helpfulwhen it comes to answering elective related questions. You can email them at:med-sch-outgoing-electives@glasgow.ac.ukThe Amazon, Peru, Laura ScobieI step outside to witness the golden sunrisereflecting on the muddy amazon water. It isanother morning in the rainforest and thereis another community to provide ahealthcare service to. We run through thevillage taking care with our steps as there isalways the risk of snakes being on the path; itis starting to get warm and in the humidityyou quickly get sweaty. We stop and buycoconuts from a local family; the refreshingwater cools us down. Village life is basic andvaries from village to village with somehaving water running to their self-builtwooden homes and others having to collectwater from the river. Again, some homeshave access to electricity from a centralgenerator or solar panels but many peopledo not. Most families live off the land and allthe money that they have is in their backpocket. Morning clinic begins and a mum arriveswith her four children. Common complaintsare headaches, fatigue or joint pain. Whenexploring the life style of patients it is easyto see why many people suffer from thesecomplaints; working in the heat of the daydoing manual labour and drinking littlewater. Iron deficiency is also common as ironrich food is not often in their diet. We screened all children for anaemia bylooking for conjunctival pallor and testedtheir haemoglobin if we felt it was necessary.We had to presume anaemia was due to irondeficiency as there were no other testsavailable to us. All patients received amultivitamin and for those children underfive who could not swallow a tablet, we wouldprescribe syrup as per their weightaccording to the BNF and boat guidelines. Although practicing medicine waschallenging at times due to limited testingand ability to follow up, one big success is thedental service. There is an excellent dentalsuite on board with room for two patients toreceive treatment. Without this the patientpopulation would have no access to dentalcare; being a population with poor generaldental hygiene, this is vital to overall patienthealth. It was a privilege to work alongsidePeruvian employees and volunteers and tobe embraced by their families and to exploretheir culture.Bristol, Heather Hamilton I did my senior Elective in Bristol in CriticalCare and Anaesthetics. I decided to stay inthe UK for a number of reasons and stillmanaged to get away before and after myelective for a break before starting back for5th year!The hospital I was at was the major traumaand neurosurgery centre for South-WestEngland which meant I got to be involvedwith the care of many complex patients. Theteaching was excellent and very hands on,especially in theatre where I was encouragedto get IV access, draw up drugs, intubate, andget involved in more complex procedures. I got to see some operations that, within theUK, are only performed at the hospital I wasbased at. In the ICU I examined patientsduring rounds, practiced US-guidedcannulas, and got involved with theemergency crash team for the whole site.The timetable was extremely flexible, and Igot to choose which theatre sessions I wasinterested in, what days I wanted off, andwhen I wanted to be in ICU.The anaesthetics department also had threecoffee machines and (a very nice – I’mtalking Sourdough and smoked salmon)lunch was bought by the consultants once aweek so that was a bonus!Staying in the UK certainly had its benefitsfor me. I was able to spend time with familyand friends that I hadn’t seen properly for afew years, and the experience helped me tosolidify my Foundation Year rankings. I spentmy weekends in London, with family in thelocal area, and Cornwall which was only acouple of hours away from Bristol.Uganda, Anna KyleFor my senior elective, I travelled to KiwokoHospital, in a rural town in Uganda for a fiveweek programme of paediatrics and generalmedicine. This was a community-basedhospital with an emphasis on spiritual as wellas physical health. Placement would beginwith 8am chapel, featuring specials run byvarious departments who took joy in dancingor dressing the medical director up as Jesus.After this, we would attend the doctor’smeeting to handover patients over localchapatis and samosas and we receivedteaching on professionalism. Following this, we headed to the wards,divided into male and female rather thanspecialities. Patients were only paediatric ifunder five years of age, and on the ‘wardround’, children were brought to the doctor’sdesk. Besides regular placement, oneweekend there was a ‘medical mission’, in aneighbouring village to run a mass screeningprogramme. This was run under the trees,until nightfall when we had to use phonetorches to see the paperwork. At this, I ran apaediatric clinic with a translator, and wasable to amuse the children by creatingballoons out of gloves!The elective provided a fascinating glimpseat healthcare in a resource-poor country.Healthcare was only partially subsidised withpatients charged for even the gloves used bystaff, so often patients would only be able toafford a consultation without investigationsor treatment. On days, the hospital ran outof essentials such as oxygen, imposingethical dilemmas. Cultural beliefsencountered could be difficult. For instance,epilepsy is stigmatized as a mental healthcondition, or attributed to demonpossession, and was at times ‘treated’ withboiling water to terminate a seizure. Womenwere often treated as property whosehusbands could dictate when and to whatextent they received medical treatment. Itwas an eye-opening elective, but thoroughlyenjoyable.