Medicine Internship in Tanzania

If you’re looking to get practical medical experience to add to your CV, this internship is ideal for you. It will help your application for medical school or a job stand out, and give you interesting points to talk about in interviews.

You’ll spend your day shadowing experienced doctors and nurses, learning all about their day-to-day work. This gives anyone with a strong interest in medicine a valuable insight into a developing country’s medical practices.

You will also get an insight into the healthcare challenges people face everyday. Many medical facilities in Tanzania lack resources. You’ll get to see how doctors cope when supplies run out and you’ll learn to diagnose and treat diseases you wouldn’t encounter in your home country.

This project runs all year round so you can organise a trip whenever it suits your schedule. You can join for as long as you like.

Your day will start with breakfast with your host family. You’ll sit down for a tasty meal before getting ready, picking up your notebook, and catching a dalla dalla, which will zip you off to a local hospital.

Your typical work day will start at about 7.30am, because Tanzanian hospitals are particularly busy in the mornings. You’ll usually finish work at around 3pm.

You’ll be assigned a supervising doctor, who will lead you through different consultations and procedures. Take notes, ask questions, and take this opportunity to learn as much as you can. You might have the chance to learn how to take X-rays or practise working with medical equipment.

You’ll help out at medical outreaches about once every two weeks. During outreaches, you’ll set up a healthcare station at a local school or community centre, and take measurements like blood pressure, blood sugar, height, and weight. This is tiring work and you’ll probably screen many different people in one day. But it’s also a chance to have direct contact with patients and provide them with early medical screening.

Once every two weeks, you’ll also attend a medical workshop given by a local doctor. At these workshops, you’ll learn valuable skills like how to administer first aid or practise suturing.

Your evenings will be free, giving you the chance to explore your surroundings and get to know your fellow interns.

The main aim of this internship is to promote an exchange of medical knowledge. This means you’ll be doing a lot of learning. Take the opportunity to ask questions, write notes, and get involved as much as you can. Qualified medical staff will be happy to share their expertise with you.

On top of all the learning you’re doing, you’ll help to provide medical care to people who don’t have the funds or transport to go to clinics and hospitals. During medical outreaches, you will give free screenings. Depending on your experience, you can assist doctors with referring patients who need further care.

During outreaches, you will also raise awareness about healthcare problems like diabetes and heart disease. Your focus will be on prevention and treatment.

In Tanzania, we’ve identified five main goals in our Medicine Management Plan. These goals are:

• Improve access to basic healthcare for disadvantaged groups
• Promote awareness of non-communicable diseases
• Improve hygiene standards
• Improve the quality of healthcare provided to patients
• Encourage an understanding of medical practices and promote an exchange of medical knowledgeJoin our Medical Internship in Tanzania and help us achieve these goals.

This is a chance for you to gain medical work experience, by learning from doctors and doing outreach work.

We can arrange extra work for university medical and healthcare elective students to meet all of your university’s requirements.  This includes meeting a set amount of clinical hours or working in a specific department.

Here are the different tasks you will do:

• Observe professional doctors in a hospital or clinic
• Spend time in several hospital departments
• Learn about healthcare and gain practical skills during medical workshops
• Participate in medical outreaches and practise taking health measures

This internship is all about broadening your medical knowledge. So we’ve partnered with local hospitals to give you the opportunity to spend time in many different departments.

In all of our medical placements, these are some of the departments you can intern in:

• Maternity
• General medicine
• Paediatrics
• Surgery
• Laboratory
• Dental unit
• Palliative care

The number of different departments you can work in will depend on how long your internship is. We recommend spending at least one week in a department before moving to another department. If you’re interested in a specific department, feel free to contact us and we can help advise you.