Clinical Placements In Sri Lanka

In Kandy, you can get experience in departments including psychiatry, surgery, OBG, and general medicine, among many others. For cultural and religious reasons, the practises and attitudes towards medicine in Sri Lanka may differ from what you’ve learnt. Our partner hospital is also known for its extraordinarily broad range of ICUs including: surgical ICU, medical ICU, cardiothoracic ICU, the coronary care unit, and cardiac ICU. Treatments are free at the point of care for patients in Sri Lanka, but a lack of resource is still a real challenge for local staff.

As a midwifery student in Sri Lanka, you’ll learn all about the differences between maternity at home versus a developing country. Spending time in our partner hospital’s OBG department you’ll see women giving birth with little to no pain relief whatsoever — the cost of medication in Sri Lanka is relatively high. C-sections are also common, making up around 40% of all births. A big part of the placement here is interacting with local midwives. You’ll learn how they get around the resource limitations, and you can share with them your knowledge from home.

The radiology department in our partner hospital in Kandy is one of the few in Sri Lanka that offer all types of radiographic diagnostic services under one roof. This means the department is often busy despite being open 24/7. To give you some idea, on any given day, local staff can perform up to 400 X-rays, 150 CT scans, and 10 MRIs. Undertake your placement here and you can choose to rotate through any (or all) of the following: X-ray rooms, the dental X-ray department, the CT room, the MRI unit, the DSA unit, and the mammography unit.

As a dental student in Sri Lanka, you’ll begin to understand the difficulties of delivering care in a low-resource environment. You’ll be welcomed in by the small, but specialised team here, and you can tap into the breadth of knowledge staff have between them. You’ll get experience across a broad range of areas. whether that be in orthodontics, in the OPD, in maxillofacial or elsewhere.

In Kandy, tropical communicable diseases are common. You may even see cases of diseases that you have never even heard of — chikungunya and Chagas disease to name two. You will be familiar with some diagnostic equipment here, but other machines may be outdated when compared with what you’re used to back at home. Due to cultural and religious factors, the approaches and attitudes towards clinical practice in Sri Lanka might differ from what you've been accustomed to. Our partner hospital is also known for its intensive care facilities including a coronary care unit, and surgical, medical, cardiothoracic, and cardiac ICUs.

Our main partner hospital in Sri Lanka offers you the chance to gain extensive experience across a range of departments. This will give you a broader understanding of Sri Lanka’s healthcare system. It’s also the case that you’ll see conditions that are either rare or non-existent in Australia. These include dengue fever, tuberculosis and malnutrition. Our partner hospital is connected to a large nursing college in the city, so you can exchange stories with Sri Lankan nursing students.

Undertaking your placement in the rheumatology department’s physiotherapy unit, Kandy offers a varied placement. You’ll experience in a number of areas including the neurosurgical ward, surgical ICU and cardiothoracics. You can also spend time in the OPD, helping to rehabilitate patients using basic gym equipment and other treatments. The OPD sees a steady stream of patients, daily. Common conditions include cerebral palsy, stroke, fractures, burns, MSK, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and beyond.