Medical Volunteers: Helping and learning in Nepal Healthcare
Last month Ann-Marie and Edwina, medical students from Australia joined VSN for the Medical Elective Program at a hospital in Kathmandu. They volunteered in a remote health post for their community medical care experience.
The Medical Care Experience
It was a combination of sharing, learning and doing. Working in healthcare is exciting, exhausting, but rewarding. Every day in healthcare, something different can happen. Therefore, some of the cases you may be faced with are:
- all issues related to pregnancy – mother and child, family planning
- administration of medication and counselling,
- tonsillitis,
- thrush,
- ringworms/infestation worms,
- asthma exacerbation and onset,
- chest infections,
- the common cold,
- all wounds/dressings – cuts, burns, lacerations, gastritis, nausea & vomiting and basic pain management.
The role of the volunteer is to perform all medical tasks within their scope of practice. They will share their skills with the nurses in the clinic and actively treat and assist in all levels of care. Thus, you will be helping to improve the nurses’ skills just as much as you are helping the patients. General nursing skills are utilized daily such as patient assessment, investigation, documentation, administration of medication, wound dressing, counseling and patient education. They are all performed in collaboration with the other nurses so you are never alone!
Medical volunteering is a wonderful, challenging but rewarding placement for any volunteer who wants to actively use their skills. It is also wonderful to work for an institution that delivers free medical treatment and medication to the community. The is especially important because if it were not for this medical centres, these remote areas would not have access to health care. We need skilled volunteers like you to help us treat local and rural communities!
Upcoming Volunteers
Our upcoming volunteers, Larissa Florence Jones & Rachel Horspool are medical students from England. Both volunteers have just arrived in Kathmandu and since then, they have started their 5 weeks Medical Elective Programme in the Kathmandu Model Hospital. They will also volunteer with the community health care experience program at a local health clinic.
Volunteer Society Nepal wants you to use your skills in the best way possible. Therefore, we have a variety of health placements to ensure that your medical expertise benefits the people in the best way and gives you the best experience:
For more medical volunteers stories, please click here.
