Tamakoshi Hospital, Manthali, Ramechhap, Nepal

Experiences and Benefits

My time on elective was an incredible and unique experience which will have a resoundingly positively impact on my future professional career as well as a personal influence. Nepal is a beautiful country and it was a privilege to be welcomed into communities and trusted with helping in the care of residents. I learnt so much about the culture and challenges Nepal faces both in healthcare and socioeconomically, an experience that I simply would not have had if I was there on the tourist trail.

Isobel at the Galpa hospital with other medical students on elective and Dr Suman

A highlight for me was the week I spent at the hospital in Galpa. Everyday we would travel to nearby villages to conduct healthcare checks to identify people who may need further investigations/treatment. Personally, this was a great educational experience, seeing hundreds of people allowed me to practice my examination skills, identifying the sick from the healthy. It also highlighted one of the main barriers faced in healthcare here which is the lack of health education.

One particular example of this was the quantity of mountain dew drunk by residents and the high levels of diabetes seen as a consequence. Never before had I really had to consider how hard it is to ensure people visit a healthcare professional when they live in extremely remote communities and aren’t aware of what worrying symptoms to look out for or what a healthy lifestyle is due to having never been to school or aren’t exposed to any forms of media. It was therefore a unique experience to go out and find people to help when the NHS suffers from the opposite challenge of demand outstripping service provision.

It was also really interesting to see how the challenge of adequate resource provision was addressed. The main tertiary centers in Kathmandu would collaborate with satellite hospitals in smaller towns who would collaborate with even smaller health centers in more remote villages. I saw this put into practice when a consultant cardiologist came from Kathmandu to run an echo clinic in Manthali for not only the patients of that hospital but also patients identified from smaller health posts as well as school screening projects. This clinic helped to identify patients who may be potential candidates for valve replacement surgery and other life saving care.

On a personal level, this elective pushed me to be resilient and adaptable. Travelling to a new country very different to the UK and for such a long period of time was a challenge in itself but then living in rural communities and helping in the hospitals definitely pushed me further out of my comfort zone. Overcoming the language barrier to ensure we still provided sensitive consultations and adjusting to a new culture and way of doing things, I feel has made me more adaptable and at ease with unfamiliar situations. I think overall I have become more resilient to stressful situations and feel more confident in my ability to overcome them, something which will be a great asset in my professional practice as a doctor.

The nature of this elective has definitely made me even more interested in working in humanitarian aid/global health in my future career due to it being such a rewarding line of work and a unique way to experience different cultures and countries and so I am really glad I was able to get a taste of this. I am very grateful to the Hospital Saturday Fund, your generous bursary made this opportunity much more financially viable and allowed me to make the most of all that was available.

One of the community screening programs at Galpa