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Medicine experience in Tanzania

Our hospital placements in Tanzania offer particularly good pre-medical work experience for students interested in infectious diseases, obstetrics (including obstetric surgery) and orthopaedic surgery. We can also arrange for you to be on-call to observe emergency surgeries outside normal placement hours, since the Gap Medics house is just a few minutes’ walk from the main hospital.

You’ll be based in a busy 365-bed Regional Hospital that offers both primary care and referral services for a large area of southern Tanzania. Malaria, road traffic accidents and complications in pregnancy and childbirth are all common causes of admissions. Roughly a third of the 60-90 babies born each week at the hospital are delivered by Caesarian section, as home births are common in this part of Africa and mothers only tend to attend hospital if there are complications.

We have a great team of doctors serving as Gap Medics student mentors, including the specialists in charge of Paediatrics, Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

All our mentors, both on the medical and nursing side, take their turn in presenting our bespoke afternoon teaching sessions covering general clinical skills, malaria, TB, traditional medical practices, HIV public education and a range of other topics. The idea of these sessions is to provide a basis to help you understand and interpret what you see while shadowing doctors and nurses in the departments, and it’s also a great way to get to know your mentors better.