Elective

Experience an environment that is very different from a regular medical course and medical issues that stretch your understanding, and allow you to reflect on your professional and personal development.

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Introduction

A health experience in a specialist area of your choice

One of the most exciting parts of your medical training with us is your elective.

You will have the opportunity to gain invaluable clinical, research or health experiences in locations where you can stretch your understanding, make a difference, and reflect on your professional and personal development.

You will carry out the six-week elective before you start your final year clinical placements. The elective offers you the chance to travel abroad or stay in the UK and explore medicine beyond the MB BS course, which could include further time in an aspect of medical practice that interests you, doing research or exploring some of the different specialist disciplines in medicine.

Students find their elective a hugely educational, enjoyable and rewarding experience. You will gain invaluable health related experiences in locations where you can help make a difference, both to healthcare services and to those who receive them.

Laura Foggett on her elective in the Philippines

Sandy Benetricht on a medicine elective in Greenland

Where will you go?

The choice is yours!

Our students have undertaken electives within our region, across the UK, or ventured overseas.

There are many local opportunities in NHS trusts with clinical subspecialties as diverse as infectious diseases and neurosurgery and at universities with local academics who lead in their field.

Further afield in the UK, students have been to organisations such as the Institute of Neurology in London, in rural settings like Fort William and Shetland, and within elite sporting environments.

Our students have also undertaken electives in hospitals and research institutes in locations as far-reaching as Vanuatu, Nepal, Belize, Malaysia, South Africa and with NASA in the USA to name but a few.

How is an elective funded?

The elective is self-funded by the medical student. Associated costs will vary depending on the elective you choose and whether the elective is overseas or in the UK.

Student perspectives

Billy Greenough

"I undertook my medical elective in the Radiology department of the Hawke's Bay Memorial Hospital, on the North Island of New Zealand.

"I wrongly assumed that due to its historical and cultural ties, the practice on the other side of the world would be the same as in the UK. I was amazed to see the difference that extreme geography, sparse population, lack of funding and locally trained staff, as well as demographic and cultural differences had on the provision of front-line healthcare.

"It was fascinating to see the realities of healthcare 'down under' and work with some of the friendliest and funniest people I have ever met.

"It was also nice to come home having realised that although New Zealand is a beautiful country, the grass isn't always greener, and the NHS is a system to be proud of.

"My medical elective has been one of the most notable opportunities I have ever been given, and I'm very grateful to the staff at Hawke's Bay Hospital and Hull York Medical School for making it possible. Thank you."

Erin McCabe

"For my elective, I travelled to remote villages along the Amazon River in Peru to deliver healthcare on a medical aid ship.

"I had the opportunity to run a daily primary care clinic on the boat, speaking to patients of all ages, who wouldn't usually have access to healthcare. For some patients, the nearest hospital was an 8-hour boat journey away!

"I was able to develop my clinical reasoning, adapt to a different demographic of patients and improve my Spanish. I had no access to the internet and only very basic medical tests, so I had to think on my feet and work using limited information.

"I am so thankful for this opportunity and believe it will make me a better clinician".

HULL YORK MEDICAL SCHOOL Stories

I spent my elective in the Oncology, Paediatrics and Emergency Departments at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia. I had a fantastic experience and was able to see many conditions that I had never witnessed before in the UK, such as Kaposi’s sarcoma and severe acute malnutrition. I particularly enjoyed my time in the emergency department as it gave me further experience in assessing and managing really sick patients.

2020 graduate

Dr Louise Gardner