Support Starts on Day One
From the moment you contact us, you'll speak with one of our placement experts. They'll talk through your clinical interests and help you decide which destination/partner hospital might best suit them, rather than fitting you into an off-the-shelf template.
If you already know where you want to go and what you want to do, no problem.
Once you’ve registered for your placement, you'll get confirmation of your place within 24 hours.
How Do We Prepare You for Your Trip?
Your interests and goals are unique and specific. So, around three months before you’re due to depart, you’ll have a clinical consultation with one of our experts. This is an in-depth but informal chat about what interests you, clinically.
You’ll discuss your experience to date and your objectives. And we’ll give you detailed information on things like cultural differences and the conditions and practices you might see.
In the lead-up to your trip, you can log into your personalised placement planner to see your trip timeline and get detailed information about your placement and expert insider information on your chosen destination.
We’ll even help you with documentation to support university paperwork, travel/indemnity insurance… You name it.
You’ll feel totally prepared by the time you head off on your trip.
Expert In-Country Support Teams
This is where Work the World's locally-hired in-country teams make all the difference.
Every destination has the same team structure: a management team, caterers, cleaners, and 24/7 security staff — all of them locally-hired, all of them there specifically to support you from your base in the Work the World house. They are available around the clock, and know your destination and placement hospital the way only a local person can.
Your flight details will be uploaded to your placement planner, and when you arrive, a member of our team will meet you at the airport, no matter what time of day or night, take you to the Work the World house, make sure you're settled, and introduce you to your new housemates.
The next day, your team takes you on a tour of the city you’re based in. Your team will make sure you know where to find all the best bars, shops, markets, and more — the kind of insider knowledge that would take weeks to gain on your own. They’ll even take you to get a local SIM card so you can stay in touch with the team, your housemates and friends and family back home.
Then, before your first clinical day, the team takes you on a hospital introduction. You're introduced to the English-speaking department supervisors and ward staff you'll be with, shown around the wards, and given the chance to acclimatise to the new setting before your placement starts.
Support in your placement hospital
For healthcare students, support has to go beyond logistics.
You're supervised by English-speaking clinical supervisors who will be briefed on your skills, interests and objectives long before you arrive, so they can meaningfully involve you as long as you show enthusiasm.
Most importantly, your in-country team's relationship with our partner hospitals means ward staff and supervisors understand why you're there and how best to support you. And if partway through your placement you want to rotate into a different department, or take on extra hours or night shifts, your in-country team has the relationships to help make adjustments.
This flexibility comes from nearly two decades of in-person relationship-building and experience planning placements around the world.
The Intangibles
Some of the most important parts of being supported aren't things you can put in a checklist.
It's the fact that you're living in our private, catered Work the World house — not a hostel, not a homestay — with other healthcare students from around the world.
That environment creates a kind of peer support that’s hard to beat. It’s all about shared experiences, shared reflection, and the knowledge that the people around you understand exactly what the experience is like.
“Undertaking placement in a different country can be confronting, but the presence of other healthcare students in the Work the World house meant that we could easily bond and debrief on cases we had seen or challenging aspects of our days.
I think the people you are with can make or break your experience, and the in-country team could not have done a better job. The team consistently goes above and beyond to accommodate all students and truly make the house feel like a home away from home”.
Ella Magner, James Cook University
It's the confidence that comes from knowing the organisation behind your placement has facilitated more than 20,000 placements, has built its entire model around healthcare students specifically, and isn't juggling your placement alongside wildlife conservation programmes or language courses.
It’s the fact that Work the World has a single focus — overseas healthcare placements, done properly, with local teams, hospital relationships, and a deep understanding of your expectations as a healthcare student to back it up.
So. When we say fully supported, we mean from the first phone call to the moment you head home from your trip. We mean experts who know your destination, a team on the ground that knows your hospital, supervisors who speak your language, houses exclusive to healthcare students, and nearly two decades of getting it right.
Speak to one of our experts — just fill out the short enquiry form, and we'll
Explore Destinations
Browse all of our destinations to see what kind of once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunities are in store for you.
Browse all of our destinations to see what kind of once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunities are in store for you.
