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Introduction;

Elective Abroad facilitates medical elective placement in Africa for physician assistant students seeking clinical training opportunity. Our physician assistant students work closely with a physician in our partner hospitals. Our program strongly complements the didactic component of physician assistant training with hands on experience.

The duties of physician assistants may be determined by the supervising physician although it is advisable that one clearly spells out his/ her own program objectives thereby conforming with the mentor’s delegation criteria.

Many PAs work in primary care specialties, such as general internal medicine, pediatrics, and family medicine. Other specialty areas include general and thoracic surgery, emergency medicine, orthopedics, and geriatrics. PAs specializing in surgery provide preoperative and postoperative care and may work as first or second assistants during major surgery.

The overwhelming demand for healthcare services in Africa, coupled with extremely limited resources, provides physician assistant program participants with a rare opportunity for significant hands on experience. Our program is suited to meet various kinds of educational requirements such as electives, clinical preceptorship, independent study abroad or internships abroad requirements.

We prefer to place students who have already had several clinical rotations and hence will use our elective placement as an opportunity to really "bring together" both the theory learned in the didactic component and the skills learned in clinical rotations.

The benefits of our Physician Assistant program include:

• Provide extensive hands on learning experience – our participants leave our programs having enhanced their experience levels with various skills
• Provide an opportunity to enhance essential Physician Assistant skills such as history taking, interviewing, physical examinations, ordering and interpreting lab tests, diagnosis, treatment planning, prescriptions, and assisting with surgeries
• Compare and analyze healthcare access and delivery in a different setting
• Opportunity to experience tropical medicine and unusual diseases
• Opportunity to see diseases at advanced clinical stages
• Meet elective and clinical rotation requirements under practitioner supervision with evaluation during and after the program
• Satisfy independent study or internship abroad for credit
• Demonstrate and satisfy global intellectual curiosity
• Safe and secure program experience while abroad
• Cultural exchange and exposure, particularly from peer students in host country and community
• Travel

We work with prospective participants to assist with designing their own program if desired, but our standard physician assistant elective provides broad hands on experience for students at the tail end of their studies. The program runs between 4 to 8 weeks, depending on elective preference. Students work closely with and under the supervision of a certified physician and are evaluated during and at the end of their placement. Sessions are structured and regularly scheduled, usually in a government community health facility. To get the most out of the program, participants ought to be willing to work some weekends, holidays and night shifts – past participants have found these shifts offer even more learning experience.

Projects:

The core of the project is the immense Hands-on clinical experience that gives medical students and volunteers a rare opportunity to practice their various skills. The program can either be rural or urban based depending on your preference

In addition to the core teaching and  outreach  project / component, all our programs have a volunteering component as a way to give back to the communities we work in; depending on the location / camp where your program is located, participants get involved in a wide range of volunteer projects, depending on their interests such as:

• Community development, especially on healthcare and educational issues
• Wildlife conservation
• Environmental conservation
• Marine conservation
• Sports development
• Some past volunteer projects have included orphanage visits, teaching kids how to swim, visiting elementary schools and making essential donations such as books and pencils. See gallery

Adventure

Depending on location, participants have the option to get involved in a wide variety of adventures, over and above the clinical and volunteering components. There are separate and optional activities that will need to be reserved separately:

• Mountain trekking at Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya and Mt. Meru
• Gorilla tracking
• Beach time
• Biking
• Scuba diving, white water rafting, and various other marine sports
• A walking tour of Nairobi, Arusha or Mombasa
• A walking tour of Kibera Slums

Click here to download : physician assistant Bronchure (3.52 MB) ||  General Programs Bronchure (769.66 kB)

More info: please send us an inquiry if you need more program questions or need more info, if you are ready to apply, please go ahead and apply at  www.electiveabroad.com/apply